Lined up across the room on a wooden platform, students wait for their lunch or sit engaged in conversations while being bathed in stained-glass lighting. One day before its lunch services are scheduled to end, the Maintenance Shop is bustling with activity.

The stage, generally the evening home to bands touring the country, is full of customers.

ISU Dining officials announced March 24 the M-Shop lunch service will be closing its doors because of budgetary pressures. Jon Lewis, director of ISU Dining, said the M-Shop was losing $16,000 per year. He said it was an effort to alleviate the $600,000 debt dining services has.

“It was just like any other day at the M-Shop,” said Mara Spooner, senior in political science. “I feel like there were a lot more people there. It was steadily busy the whole time.”

Spooner said she had not gone to the M-Shop very often in previous years, although this year she has become a regular.

“It’s a better alternative than the food court,” she said.

Talitha Fox, president of the Student Union Board, said she has mixed feelings about the closure.

She said it would be hard to raise enough money to cover the debt, but it is still depressing to see the service end.

“I’m extra sad,” Fox said. “I think tomorrow is going to be an extremely emotional day.”

Kelly Considine, an employee at the M-Shop, said many of the employees there are taking the news hard. ISU Dining offered employees new positions within dining services, but no one has accepted, she said.

“We kind of describe it as the Memorial Union breaking up with us,” Considine said.

She said this is the second time she has lost a job because of budget cuts. Her first job was as a hall desk assistant at Towers. She was let go after the Department of Residence could not afford her position.

Considine, senior in horticulture, said the M-Shop offered a unique, laid-back environment that will now be lost.

“It didn’t feel like a job,” she said. “It felt like hanging out with friends, like taking a break from the day.”

Fox said she realized the M-Shop’s lunch service would not be able to be salvaged after a meeting last week with Lewis and Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs.

“That’s when it hit me that it’s highly unlikely [it would stay open]. Even in a year’s time, it’s hard to come up with that much money,” she said.

Considine said many of the employees felt that administrators were apathetic toward their situation. She said a group of employees were snubbed at a public forum on April 12 held by Hill, Lewis and Richard Reynolds, director of the Memorial Union. Days later, she said, Hill came into the M-Shop to gather feedback from customers. After talking to everyone there, he left and returned with food from the union’s food court.

“That was a smack in the face,” Considine said.

A farewell is planned for Friday after the final lunch service at 2 p.m., Fox said.

A coloring contest and other events to memorialize the service are planned as part of the farewell, she said.

“On Friday afternoons, the staff just kind of hangs out,” Considine said. “It’s a great way to end — on a good vibe.”