Dear AU Community, 

During the past two months, we’ve met with many campus stakeholders to share information about exciting improvements and changes in our dining program. Today we are writing to provide a mid-semester, community-wide update about the continued improvements to our dining program.   

Over spring break, we continued our efforts to transform the former East Campus Convenience Store into our campus’ first grocery concept. This work included adding additional grocery products to our inventory based on the community’s feedback. We also continued renovations to create a new home for the Eagle’s Nest Convenience Store next to Starbucks in the Tunnel. In April, we will share more information with the community about the move for Eagle’s Nest as well as our process for renaming both the Eagle’s Nest Convenience Store and the East Campus Grocery concept.  

This summer, we will begin several dining and retail improvement projects that will enable us to start the next phases for the University’s Student Thriving Complex. This upcoming work is designed to create a retail hub for our community that spans from the first floor of the Mary Graydon Center through the Butler Pavilion to the Tunnel. To accomplish this, we will move the Campus Store from the Butler Pavilion into the fully renovated former Eagle's Nest location in the Tunnel; renovate Starbucks and Subway; open a new Qdoba in the Tunnel between Subway and the UPS Store; and open a Panera on the first floor of the Mary Graydon Center, replacing the current Einstein Bros. Bagels and Paper Lantern locations.  

To better serve our community, we also are pleased to announce that we will offer new meal plans starting this fall, which are the result of significant study and design during fall 2022, along with substantial community engagement work over the past two months. The new plans are designed to improve choices and options for our entire community while better aligning the meal plans with our dining program improvement efforts that began in 2022 and will continue this summer. Improvements include the implementation of a new campus card management system, new venue openings, and health and safety improvements. For fall 2023, our community members can expect a significantly improved dining experience supported by new meal plan choices for students, faculty, and staff.  

We will continue to share updates with the community as work progresses. As always, we invite the AU community to contact us at mealplans@american.edu with questions or comments, and you can find more information about our dining program online at https://dineoncampus.com/au.  

Onward we go together,  

Bronté Burleigh-Jones
Chief Financial Officer, Vice President, and Treasurer

Michael Scher
Assistant Vice President, Campus Auxiliary Services and Airlie  

Ann Marie Powell
Sr. Director, Dining and Auxiliary Services