The University has finalized the changes for the J Street revamp, overhauling almost every food venue in the often criticized dining hall, with an additional  promise of longer hours and more seating options.

By scrapping Chick-Fil-A and Wendy’s – former staples of the food court – University officials hope to enhance J Street’s identity as a campus hub.

The Metro Diner – slotted into J Street Café’s former space – will serve all-day breakfast and typical diner food, like burgers and salads. The Coffee Stop, which will provide Seattle’s Best Coffee, hot breakfast sandwiches, yogurt and fruit cups, will complement the diner from the former Wendy’s counter. Both venues will be open seven days-a-week until midnight in response to student gripes about J Street closing on weekends.

“We’re trying to create a destination where students want to come not only to eat, but to socialize and gather with their friends. We feel like what we offer in J Street has to support everything students do in this building and on campus,” Nancy Haaga, director of GW’s Campus Support Services, said.

Thyme, another new venue, will take over Chick-Fil-A’s location and specialize in comfort food with the daily “Buff and Blue Plate Special,” and offer a combination of food for lunch and dinner that will “follow strict dietary guidelines,” Hagaa said.

“That was something that we heard from our customers. They want a fresher product. They want to get away from so much processed food to get to more of an authentic taste,” Haaga said.

The center of J Street, dubbed Green Fields, will feature a hot bar of rotating international food alongside the familiar sandwich and salad bar. Customers will pay reduced per-ounce prices, down from 50 to 48 cents for hot foods and 42 cents for salads. The University also removed the staircase and Washington Monument replica in order to create more space in the center of the food court.

Haaga declined to say how much the construction and overhaul would cost, citing the “confidential” nature of GW’s contract with Sodexo.

This slew of changes comes after the University eliminated mandatory spending for sophomores, who are no longer required to spend $500 at Sodexo-run venues in the Marvin Center and West Hall. Freshmen must still purchase $750 campus dining dollars per semester.

As competition for students’ dining choices is growing fiercer – several popular Foggy Bottom restaurants like Devon and Blakely, Sweetgreen, Roti and Whole Foods will open in The Avenue this fall – Haaga said GW realized the changes were needed.

“We’ve done a lot of work looking around very carefully at what we’re competing against,” Haaga said. “If we’re not value competitive and price competitive, why would students want to come here? It just made absolute perfect sense to us that part of this overall effort to enhance campus dining needed to make sure that we position ourselves to be competitive in the marketplace.”

J Street has seen a merry-go-round of venue changes and tweaks in the past few years, but this marks the first major revamp since 2007, which was met with student resistance because of Colonial Cash restrictions and lack of organic options.

Student Association President John Richardson is confident that students will see a difference this year “now that Sodexo realized they had mismanaged the contract.”

“The definitive difference for me is going to be the commitment on Sodexo’s part to our community. They’re going to actually produce to the standard that we expect here,” Richardson said.

Richard Yokely, the resident district manager of Sodexo, did not return a request for comment.

The details of the facelift, Hagaa said, stem from student input in online surveys and comment cards, which were taken into consideration by University task forces, the Student Dining Commission and the SA.

“You can’t change a multimillion dollar food service overnight,” Richardson said. “It has taken several years for SA to gear up, and [former SA president Jason Lifton] did really well in this case in making it a priority.”

GW and Sodexo are also searching for a new executive chef for J Street. Former chef Ivy Hung, who was hired earlier this year, left the position after only a few months. Haaga said the chef was offered a similar post in California.

The new hours of operation: