Many of you may have gotten a newsletter from FGCU Dining Services about new offerings that they have throughout campus. Most notable of these is the lunch at The Boardwalk and the virtual Flex dollar store. 

Lunch at The Boardwalk has been available for the first Tuesday of the month since November.

Lunch at the Boardwalk is available from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. The Boardwalk is my personal favorite place to eat on campus, and my favorite dish is the chicken alfredo. It might be more expensive than some of the food on campus, but in my opinion, it is well worth it, especially if you have a meal plan. Since this is my favorite place to eat on campus, I am a huge fan of the opportunity to eat lunch there. When I went this month, I tried the chicken parmesan sandwich on garlic bread since they said it was a limited-time item and I thought it was good.

Eating at The Boardwalk is so enjoyable that it makes me wonder why it’s not available every day. The quality of food there is so far above the food around the rest of campus (especially SoVi Dining) and I feel like students would enjoy the opportunity to be able to have lunch by the beach after class and not be relegated to one day a month. I do understand why they don’t do it all the time though, because every time I’ve gone to lunch at The Boardwalk it’s empty. There were also a lot of people there that were not students. It is understandable why they don’t do it all the time as it would not be very cost-effective. 

I feel like one of the reasons it’s empty is the lack of advertisement for lunch at The Boardwalk. If students do not follow Campus Dining on social media or check their emails often, they would not know about the lunch, so they should find other ways to let people know about the special event then maybe more students would show up. 

The Virtual FGCU Store is another opportunity that campus dining first introduced at the end of last semester. The Virtual FGCU Store allows you to buy different candies, chips, coffee, nuts and other snacks in bulk. The interesting thing about this store is that they only take Flex Dollars, which makes it difficult for some people to order from them. They will also send the food right to your on-campus housing or if you live off campus, they will send it there as well, so you don’t have to pick it up and lug all that food around campus. 

Some students have also complained about the prices being too expensive, however since they only take Flex Dollars, I see it more as a way for students to use any outstanding amount of Flex they have before the semester ends and get a lot of food for it in return. For this purpose, I think the Virtual FGCU Store is a great way for students to get good food in bulk.