Students living in the Quadrangle will soon have a brand-new option among their nearby dining choices.
On Friday, Aramark will open the Triangle Diner, a new restaurant located at 3716 Spruce St., next door to Beijing Chinese restaurant.
The grand opening is scheduled to take place in a couple of weeks, after all the details have been finalized and initial customer response assessed.
Many students living in the Quad said they are pleased with the opening.
"It's a great idea," College sophomore Celeste McDonald said. "There is a dearth of places to eat on campus, and it would be a great addition."
The diner will offer a wide array of traditional menu items -- burgers, pizza and milkshakes, among others -- as well as healthier options like salads and vegetarian dishes.
Because of its affiliation with Aramark, the Triangle is considered to be part of University Dining Services, and will therefore accept Dining Dollars and PennCash.
The possibility to select these payment methods is the chief reason behind the diner's choice of location -- a few yards away from the Quad's upper gate.
"We needed a service near the Quadrangle, where many students on a meal plan live," Aramark Marketing Program Manager Maeve Duska said.
"It would be nice to have more options with the Dining Dollars," Engineering freshman Matthew Herbster said. "This is definitely a good thing, considering the quality of the dining halls, and there are only a few other places that take Dining Dollars on campus."
When Aramark became the University's dining provider in the summer of 2002, it set up a MarketMatch analysis. This series of surveys and interviews polled about 2,000 members of the Penn community.
The goal was "to get an idea of what services were needed on campus," Duska said.
The diner is "our response to the students' request for options in the middle of the residential area," Aramark Retail Operations Director Matt Smith said.
To put these results in practice, the University allocated enough funds for Aramark to open dining services in Houston Market, the Cyber Cafe in the Towne Building, Mark's Cafe in the Van Pelt Library and finally the Triangle Diner.
The same polls showed that student dining preferences vary from class to class, so freshmen might choose items that seniors might not always favor.
This piece of information was also one of the reasons that prompted the Triangle to open its doors near the Quad, where a good portion of the freshman population lives.
"The study showed that freshmen prefer a diner-style cuisine, so the Triangle's location is a perfect fit," Duska said.
The restaurant will make deliveries on campus and will remain open until midnight from Monday to Thursday, 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 11 p.m. on Sundays.
The Triangle is the second diner to open on campus, after the Philly Diner on Walnut Street. However, Aramark officials said that they do not fear the competition.
"The campus is very segmented, and people from the high rises will probably not trek all the way to Spruce Street, as people from the Quad are not likely to walk across campus to eat," Duska said. "We're serving a very different population."
