(Posted November 12, 2013)

Families come to Boxers to enjoy food and good company.
Families come to Boxers to enjoy food and good company.

It's Alumni/ Family weekend and your family has come to visit. After attending the exciting events on campus, you and your family are looking for a nice place to sit down, relax, and enjoy a meal. Where do you go? In an ideal world, where would you like to go? Juniata students share their ideas for potential eateries both off and on campus, and share some of the existing places to eat that most people might not know about.

Harris Cauler '15, Moorestown, N.J.

"I think we definitely need more places for casual dining. It would be nice to have places where college students could eat, hangout and do work; for instance, coffee shops with lounges attached. It has to be a space where a lot of students can just sit and do work and it would probably have to be off campus so that it could be independent. I think it would be really cool if Standing Stone turned the apartment upstairs into a place with couches and additional seating so more people could fit and students could study. I also think it would be cool to have a coffee shop that would still serve after 10 p.m. Students could work there and serve until 2 a.m. .It would be cool to have a nicer chain restaurant like T.G.I. Fridays or Texas Roadhouse, but I don't know if that's realistic in Huntingdon."

Alex Stoudt '17, Fleetwood, Pa.

"I'd like to see more sit-down chain restaurants like an Applebee's or a Red Lobster. When my family comes to visit it seems like our choices are either McDonald's or Baker. Standing Stone is great, but my parents have been there many times. We need more options for when our families come to visit. Sunday nights in Standing Stone get backed up and during Homecoming weekend, it was nearly impossible to get in. It seems that Standing Stone is one of the only options, so maybe they should expand to accommodate more people. I also think there should be a Chick-fil-A on campus because I would go there all the time."

Andrew Pfisterer '15, Wellsboro, Pa.

"I think in and around the area we have plenty of places to eat and we have Sodexo on campus. We have Mimi's, Boxers, Standing Stone, Top's Diner, and you can get stuff to cook at the grocery store. Altoona and State College are close enough to drive to if you want more options. Where I'm from, we have to drive about an hour to go to a nice place to eat. When I lived in Huntingdon for one summer, I had to commute to work, so I discovered other places to eat in the area. I think maybe more advertising has to be done because it's not that restaurants don't exist, it's just that people don't really know about them. Maybe places can make deals for family weekend or other times when there are lots of people at the college to get more business. As for on campus, I saw on Facebook that the 2013 class gift for Juniata will be a late night food truck that would run from 12a.m.-4a.m. and would provide students with food really late at night. I think that's a great idea because muddy closes at 11 p.m. and Sheetz on Mifflin Street turns off the fryers at 11 p.m. Students don't really have a means to get food late at night when we're studying."

Mackenzie Coulter-Kern '14, Manchester, Ind.

"I think on Sundays especially, it's very difficult to find a place to eat with your family because both Boxers and Mimis are closed. Having a place that's more of a sit-down restaurant would be nicer than just a coffee shop. Standing Stone was developed by an alumni of Juniata as a way to bridge the gap between the college and the Huntingdon community, which is what has made it so successful. If there was a sit-down restaurant that was based on the same premise, I think it would also be very successful.."

Hannah Jeffery '16, Juniata Online Journalist

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Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.