By Matt Sotlar / The Jambar
For hungry students, Youngstown State University’s catering service, YSU Eats, offers 11 restaurants across campus to choose from. These include Chick-fil-A, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wendy’s and back by popular demand, Chop’d and Wrap’d.
Previously, YSU Eats was known as YSU Dining by Chartwells. Marketing Director McKenzie Kobbe said she felt the logo needed updating.
“We were originally YSU Dining by Chartwells and that the name was too long and clunky and the logo itself was outdated,” Kobbe said. “How can we make it more fun and more engaging? So we changed to YSU Eats and our new logo has Pete [the Penguin] in it.”
YSU Eats works to serve all students on campus. Kobbe said that YSU Eats holds events to serve students.
“We do a lot of free events for students on campus,” Kobbe said. “We do the football games on Saturdays, we do a lot of catering and then we’ll set up a Chick-fil-A tent. We like to do these events called ‘Love YSU Eats’ where we give out freebies, we give out hot chocolate or apple cider donuts. Always something fun.”
YSU Eats also hosts pop-up catering events twice a month outside the 9/11 Memorial near Kilcawley Center. The next pop-up catering is Sept. 17, cheeseburger sliders will be offered to celebrate National Cheeseburger Day.
Each year, surveys provided by YSU Eats allow both students and staff to leave feedback. Kobbe said feedback helps YSU Eats determine how new and existing restaurants can be improved.
“We do these voice-division survey results in the fall,” Kobbe said. “We’ll actually be putting them out soon, where we ask all students, staff and faculty what can be changed around campus. A majority of them asked for Chop’d and Wrap’d back, so we replaced Choolaah with Chop’d and Wrap’d in the food court, and everybody’s excited about that.”
Student engagement is a top priority for YSU Eats. Kobbe said for the fall semester, she hopes to see more engagement at campus events.
“We’d love to see students stay on campus,” Kobbe said. “We’d love to see more student engagement, people coming to events and just supporting because so many people are doing great things here. We get to be a part of it, but there’s so many that are involved. Seeing people turn out to events would be great.”
YSU Eats offers both late-night dining from Monday to Thursday from 8–11 p.m., as well as food delivery. Kobbe said that the deliveries are done through YSU Catering by Chartwells.
“The deliveries are done through catering, so you would order at ysu.catertracks.com, and you’ll see all the different options,” Kobbe said. “You just order it right through there and you put in the instructions where you want it delivered and we’ll bring it.”
Delivery fees are included in the cost of the food. YSU Eats delivers food across campus via golf carts.
For those interested in events sponsored by YSU Eats, it posts regular updates to its Facebook and Instagram @ysueats.
