Milk. Sandwich meat. Cereal. Macaroni and Cheese. These are staples in many college students’ diets, and once again they can all be bought right on upper campus with the reopening of the convenience store in Hilltop Center.

The convenience store, which was shut down around the same time as the remodeling of the upper campus cafeteria, reopened its doors Monday, Feb. 11 to sell convenience items to students.

Hilltop Center Manager Paula Stytz said it was always the intention to re-open the convenience store and it provides students with items they would want to keep in the dorms.

“The main purpose of the C-Store is to provide (students) with convenience items that they need for their dorm rooms or that they like in their dorm rooms,” Stytz said.

The convenience store is now located on the first floor. Students may remember when it was on the second floor, but now that area has been converted into more cafeteria space.

The cafeteria was expanded to make room for more students who now use the All Access meal plan, Stytz said.

“The cafeteria is the entire second floor of the building now,” she said. “We needed to expand the seating and we wanted to give them more variety.”

There are now smaller food venues in the cafeteria replacing Taco Bell and other restaurants that used to share the space with the convenience store.

Freshman Cammy Rathsack has used the convenience store once since its reopening. She said she likes to keep pretzels, peanut butter and Peace Tea in her dorm room which she can buy right on upper campus at the store.

“(It’s) somewhere you can get snacks without going to lower campus,” Rathsack said.

Junior Zak Stehlin, who works at the convenience store, said that he gets around 20 students an hour buying something from the store. He said they primarily buy drinks, chips and other snacks.

“It’s a convenient way for saving time from having to go to Walmart,” he said.

The hours of operation are not the same as the previous store, Stytz said. The new hours, rather, are based on the needs they thought students would have for it this year.

Hours of operation are:
Noon to 8 p.m., Sunday-Thursday
Noon to 6 p.m., Friday
Noon to 4 p.m., Saturday