New year, new dining hall? Students returning to the campus may notice a few changes to the North Campus Dining Hall, including a new layout and new menu.

Dining Services officials spent the summer updating the dining hall’s layout to better accommodate students and employees, said Bart Hipple, Dining Services spokesman. They’ve also made subtle changes to the food offered and the size of the menu at the Sprouts vegan station to address student requests for healthier food, as well as changes to the value menu at both the North and South Campus dining halls.

One of the more notable changes was made to the North Campus Dining Hall’s sandwich station. The operation has been redone to accommodate a more Chipotle- or Subway-style method: Students will order their bread and meat first, then continue down the line as they request condiments and other toppings.

Officials also removed the dining hall’s dessert counter, though students can still get slices of cake and pie where the doughnut display once sat.

The dessert station’s remodeling was done to accommodate the new, larger Sprouts vegan station. There is now room for two additional stations within the Sprouts operation: one specifically for stir-fry and the Sprouts daily special and one for Sprouts wraps and other menu offerings.

And the “New Yorker” station, which was once a nighttime hot sub station, has been converted into a gourmet salad station similar to the South Campus Dining Hall’s Salad Sensations.

Students today have more sophisticated palates and are asking for healthier, more flavorful food, Hipple said. The department shed the fried food from the value meals and is adding options with more complex combinations of flavors at both dining halls.

“The new layout of the diner was strange at first,” said Brenda Shah, a sophomore physiology and neurobiology major. “However, after the first few awkward attempts of standing in the wrong line or saying the wrong things, I learned the ropes and found that this layout is much more efficient.”

Fortunately, students have more time to adjust to the new layout, as officials have also extended the dining hall’s hours. On nights with no late-night service, the dining hall stays open until 8 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.

The goal with the changes was to improve customer service and accommodate a larger incoming freshman class, Hipple said. Dining Services also began requiring employees to wear name tags and looked at new plating techniques to improve the appearance of the food served at both the North and South Campus dining halls.

Although it isn’t far into the semester, Hipple said the new layout has kept the North Campus Dining Hall cleaner and more efficient, and Dining Services has received positive student feedback.

“The menu at Sprouts is bigger and better than it was before and provides students with plenty of healthy vegan options,” said Nick Henninger, a sophomore economics major. “I feel better about eating at the diner this year, and am generally more confident that I will not regret what I’ve eaten.”