Students who drop by the Memorial Union Food Court and Commons to grab a quick bite to eat will find choosing a meal and making their way through the 3,000 person crowds requires a little more time than the drive through.

Officials say this is because the renovated Food Court and Commons have been quite successful, although some restaurants have cut their hours.

Kathy Svec, Memorial Union marketing coordinator, said, “We are finding we’re definitely seeing an increase in sales overall, and we are seeing a greater variety of students using the Commons and using the Food Court.”

Heinz Humm, Food Court manager, said the renovated operation is doing well. He said business has increased since the renovation and he thinks it is because the totally new operation gives customers eight meal choices.

“It gives an opportunity to shop around. It is a better experience to come and utilize the Commons and the cafeteria,” Humm said.

Humm estimated over 3,000 people eat in the whole operation daily.

Humm said some hours for the food court have been adjusted because things were “fairly slow” at 7 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Now, businesses open on the weekends at 10 a.m.

Many of the evening hours are still the same, but there have been adjustments for the individual restaurants. Casa Ortega and Hearthstone have shortened their hours due to the lower demand during the evening hours.

Other restaurants remain open until 9 p.m. “I think we found we did not need the full array of choices until 9 at night,” Svec said.

Still, Humm said there is room for improvement, and he hopes to get even more business.

Over the next three months, he said they plan to do some marketing because they would like to attract even more business.

“We definitely can handle it,” Humm said. “The idea is to reward our customers maybe with special meals and maybe attract new customers.”

Svec said from the research they have done, they have found that many students have yet to visit the Food Court.

“We would like to convince a few more people to use the Union in their daily routine,” she said.

In addition to students who have yet to visit the renovated Commons, Humm some students may not be aware that is it open because it was “out of commission” for so long.

The Commons was closed for construction beginning the last week of Oct. 1995. It began reopening in mid-May of 1996. The Food Court held its grand opening on Aug. 27 at the start of the school.