Fresh Flavors: Exploring new dining coming to SEMO’s campus

Set to open this fall semester, Copper Dome Cafe will feature a variety of different cuisines in its new dining venue.

Director of Marketing for SEMO dining Alicia Ticer said the University Center location of Copper Dome Cafe provides a central space for students to meet with friends and enjoy their meals.

“One of the nice things about it being inside the University Center is that there’s so much room to sit down and really enjoy your meal. There’s so much happening there, and it’s a really convenient spot to have friends meet you from all throughout campus,” Ticer said.

Copper Dome Cafe will feature a variety of restaurants, including Sono, which was previously part of Redhawks Market. There will also be a sandwich shop, Normal Ave Subs, a pizza place called Wild Pies and a homestyle-themed place called The Birdhouse Kitchen.

Ticer said The Birdhouse Kitchen will feature comfort food meals from all different cultures.

“It’s loosely homestyle meals, things like root beer-glazed ham and the honey sriracha salmon. But we’re also going to be bringing in some international cuisine. So at dinner, you could find things like butter chicken or dal curry, things like that,” Ticer said.

Copper Dome Cafe will also cater to students with dietary restrictions.

The new Cooper Dome Cafe is located in the back of the UC near Panda Express.Photo by Blake Schowalter

The SEMO dining website outlines how students can pay for their meal. According to SEMO dining, Copper Dome Cafe will be a meal plan venue, so when students enter the venue, they will use a meal swipe to pay for their meal. This includes the freebie station and fountain drinks.

To celebrate the opening of Copper Dome Cafe, there will be activities every day during the first week of operation. This will include things like specialty snack mixes, a scavenger hunt and chances to win prizes.

“Starting Monday, for the whole week, we’re going to have a dine in and enter to win, so every time you enter Copper Dome Cafe, you can enter to win a Sono party pack for you and your friends. On Wednesday, we’ll have giveaways for the first, 50th, 100th, and 150th students to come through the door,” Ticer said.

Ticer added that the university is committed to sustainability 365 days a year. As with the other dining venues on campus, Copper Dome Cafe aims to keep campus green.

“Since we are such a large food service, we actually track our food waste on a campus perspective and based on location. So whenever something is arising, we’re tracking how much food wasn’t consumed or was wasted out. Then we can really drive down to understand why that happened and how we can correct that so we can limit our food waste,” Ticer said.

In addition to Copper Dome Cafe, there are a few other additions coming to campus this fall, including Starship food delivery robots.

Associate Vice President of student life Bruce Skinner said the food delivery robots, which are accessible through the standalone app Starship Food Delivery, will be deployed on campus this fall. Students can use the app to order food and have it delivered to the entrance of their building by the robot.

“So, for example, if you're in the University Center, it would meet you outside of Starbucks. I would use the app to open the top of the robot, take my food out, close it, and then it goes back to wherever it is stationed,” Skinner said.

The other new addition on campus coming this fall is a new location of Grace Cafe, set to open in Dempster Hall.

Skinner said Grace Cafe reached out to the university, and they developed a plan to set up a coffee stand with some prepackaged food options in Dempster.

“After going back and forth, we identified a space in Dempster. Grace Cafe will be a subcontractor for Chartwells. Right now, they haven’t finalized the opening date, but we are targeting the first few weeks of campus,” Skinner said.

These new venues, set to open this fall semester, aim to shake up campus dining and provide students with new places to eat across campus.