STAFF EDITORIAL: Voting with their stomachs

The success of Izzy and Zoe's holds important lessons for those planning the future mix of retail on Penn's campus. After years of clamoring for an on-campus bagel store, students greeted the opening of the Izzy and Zoe's delicatessen on 40th Street last week with long lines and good word of mouth. As administrators continue to revamp University City retail, they would do well to consider the primary lesson of the establishment's early success: If you give students what they want, they will respond with their wallets. Indeed, Izzy and Zoe's is far from the only example of this phenomenon. The new University Bookstore and Xando coffee shop, both in Sansom Common, opened with a wave of success and still brim with activity during most hours of operation. However, Eat at Joe's on the 3900 block of Walnut Street represents a clear failure at the other end of the spectrum. Students have asked for years for a reasonably priced diner that would stay open 24 hours a day. Instead, they were given an overpriced '50s theme restaurant with more limited hours that has drawn less-than-rave reviews from its clientele. Izzy and Zoe's is the kind of success that the University should try to replicate when meeting other student retail demands. For instance, students have said time and again that they would like a music store and video store on campus. The closing of two Burger Kings leaves a void in the area of budget dining that has yet to be filled. Many have also indicated preferences for a moderately priced Italian restaurant and a traditional 24-hour diner like those elsewhere in the city. There are only a few vacancies on campus, most in the 40th Street area, but the campus' planned expansion to the east will open up new venues. We hope that University officials will move more swiftly than they have in the past to meet these requests. And as Penn administrators consider their options for improving the campus' retail mix, let them remember that as far as the student body's retail demands go, if you build what they want, they will come.