ACDC changes location of cashiers to dining entrance

For students who have eaten at the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) lately, they have probably noticed that the location of the cash register has changed. Instead of cashiers seated at one or both of the desks to either side of the plasma screen TV by the entrance to the cafeteria, cashiers now sit at a table in the lobby. 
Student reaction to this change seems mildly negative when it exists at all; some expressed initial confusion at the switch, or concern for longer lines due to a single cashier instead of two.

According to Senior Director of Campus Dining Maureen King, Campus Dining has been thinking for some time about trying to move the cashiers outside to the lobby."  When ACDC was renovated in the early '90s the spaces where cashiers previously sat were built, but not used, because the meal plan changed the following semester to a pay-per-item system; cashiers sat at the exits from the main cafeteria into the dining rooms.

The switch is "just on a trial basis," says King; "there's a port [in the lobby] for the register so we thought, ‘Well, let's try and see how it works.'"

"It's all right," said Central Dining Cashier Merrandie "Randy" Walker.  Although she stated that she and the other cashiers didn't know about the change prior to its implementation, "I like it…It's more open. If I don't talk to you going in, I can talk to you going out."

Walker also pointed out that the setup made it easier for cashiers to interact with non-dining visitors to ACDC. For example, Walker recalled that a visitor to campus recently wandered into ACDC; seeing that she was confused, Walker asked if she could help her and was able to direct the visitor to her destination.

King hesitated to say that the switch was a reaction to ACDC theft. "I will say that [having] someone in the lobby deters theft," she said, referring both to people entering ACDC without paying or swiping, and to people leaving with tableware and silverware, "which disappears at an alarming rate."

Walker said that putting cashiers in the lobby "probably will slow [theft] down… I feel that being out there makes people less likely to try to walk in."  Previously, an ACDC employee or Security officer would often sit in the lobby in an attempt to deter theft, but moving cashiers outside kills two birds with one stone.