The College has reduced dining hall hours during the summer because there are substantially fewer students on campus, Director of College Dining Services Peter Napolitano said.
Food Court closes at 8p.m. every day and Courtyard Cafe in The Hopkins Center closes at 10 p.m. on Sunday and Monday, 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday, 3 p.m. on Friday and is closed all day on Saturday.
Collis Cafe is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5 Monday through Friday. The Lone Pine Tavern is open until midnight Tuesday through Thursday and until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Napolitano said College representatives met Spring term with members of the Sophomore Class Council to discuss options for the dining hours.
The hours "are a result of advice from the Sophomore Class Council," he said and are an attempt to get an "amicable solution."
"You have to look at the amount of business there is on campus during the summer and the amount there is the other three terms," he said.
He said DDS would take huge losses if it operated more during the summer.
Class of 1996 President Brendan Doherty said the College presented few options to the Class Council.
"None of the plans were very good. We tried to make at least one thing open each day," Doherty said. "It was pretty awful."
Doherty said one proposal was to have Food Court closed the entire weekend.
Because of the many summer camps at Dartmouth, Napolitano said the College needs to keep many of the dining halls open for lunch and close them early.
Doherty said the College "would not budge" on keeping some dining halls open later.
"They even admitted it would be a problem," Doherty said. "We didn't have very much of a choice ... There was not much we could do. We weren't really happy with anything."
Napolitano said late night dining spots traditionally do not do well in the summer. "Students are not really interested in eating late at night during the summer," he said.
But Jay Bruce '96 was interested in eating at night. On Sunday, he came to get dinner at Food Court at 8:05 p.m., only to find the doors locked.
"I am not happy. I didn't even know. I was reading Shakespeare and saying to myself 'hmmm I'm a little hungry,'" he said. "This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. What's going on?"
Collis Cafe Manager Cynthia Crutchfield said she does not think there will be any changes to dining hours this summer but said "we'll take in comments and make adjustments for next time."
Even though the hours are reduced, the minimum required balance rose $30. Napolitano said the increase was standard and coincided with the end of the fiscal year in July.
The fees are not lower during the summer because Dining Services operates at a loss. "We spend September, October and November digging out of losses from summer," he said.
Napolitano said he has not received complaints this summer.