Officials remodeled The Eatery at Pelham Commons this summer, which students said made the space more uniform with Foggy Bottom dining halls but less welcoming.

The summer renovations, which officials announced in April, included a fresh paint job and new flooring, seating options and food stations, which officials placed in a circular formation around the hall’s perimeter. Dining staff said the renovations to Pelham, the dining hall on the Mount Vernon Campus, increased the variety of food options and expanded the space, while students reported more dining stations but a less intimate atmosphere due to the reconfiguration of seating.

Senior Executive Chef Matenziion D’Astrii said officials renovated the space to give Pelham “a fresh new start” by updating the previous “old” and “outdated” dining hall. D’Astrii said officials replaced carpeting with tile, removed booths to create an open concept seating layout and added new paint and cabinets with a blue and yellow color scheme.

He said the upgrades to Pelham were intended to match the layouts of the two Foggy Bottom dining halls located in Thurston and Shenkman, which opened in fall 2022 and spring 2023, respectively, following GW’s transition from a Dining Dollars program to a meal swipe program in spring 2023. Officials last renovated the Pelham dining hall in summer 2018 when officials transitioned the space into an all-you-care-to-eat venue.

“Everything downtown in Foggy Bottom was new, of course,” D’Astrii said. “So just bringing everything up with the times and so that everybody didn’t feel left out.”

Officials also plan to open a “Just-Walk-Out Market” that allows students to access food during all hours and days of the week using self-checkout kiosks.

He said officials also added smoothies, ice cream and additional dairy milk alternatives, all of which are available at Shenkman and Thurston dining halls. Pelham now offers hot entrees at Innovation, international foods at Crave Global and pizza at 500 Degrees. The eatery also offers fried foods at Flame, allergen-free dishes at Pure Eats, sandwiches at Wrapped, desserts at Sweet Shoppe and salads at Chopp’d + Wrapp’d.

“There’s a whole bunch of different things that are available now, the ice cream, the different kinds of milk, things like that,” D’Astrii said.

University spokesperson Julia Metjian said in April that the renovations aimed to expand food offerings available to students.

“The servery in Pelham will be refreshed to allow for more stations and more options for students to better align with the offerings of Thurston and Shenkman,” Metjian said in an April email.

Students reported in April that limited food options on the Vern forced them to travel to Foggy Bottom for meals. D.C. Health Department officials in March 2023 reported mice droppings in the dining hall’s dry storage area, opened food products, improper dating and labeling and improper temperatures for cold food. A report from later that month showed dining officials corrected the violations, and a University spokesperson said officials made all “necessary resolutions” after implementing a “corrective action plan.”

“There was a big push by the end of last semester to really fix the Pelham situation,” said sophomore Donald Webster, an international affairs student who lived on the Vern last year. “Because I feel like at fall 2023 food was not very good, but by the end of spring 2024 semester, they had made great strides in fixing the food. And then when I went there last week, it was very good, I would say the food is honestly better than what I’ve had since coming back at Thurston or at Shenkman.”

Webster said the food has improved this year due to new options that build on core entrees and salads like the ice cream machine, a full drink selection and a coffee machine. He said the physical upgrades to the space made the dining hall feel less “warm” and more “sterile” compared to the more intimate seating arrangements in the dining hall before the renovations.

“They’ve gone for a very modern look, which is understandable,” Webster said. “They want it to look clean and new. But I do feel like a bit of that home feel that I talked about earlier was kind of lost when they renovated it. Now it feels a lot more just like a cafeteria.”

He also said the food stations are arranged in a ring, instead of a line, which altered the flow of the space.

“They have an outdoor seating area now, they completely gutted part of the seating area and made it a lot more open,” Webster said.

Webster said he valued the relationships he made with the Pelham workers while living on the Vern last year and that despite the other changes, new Vern residents will be able to make the dining hall feel like home if they continue to connect with the staff.

“That vibe that I had last semester, that I enjoyed at Pelham, is kind of lost, but I do have hope for the fact that the freshmen living there now can make it their own sort of home and enjoy it,” he said.

Tineisha Murray, a cashier at Pelham, said the renovations created more room for crowds to move through the space during busy mealtimes and explore new food offerings.

“As far as the renovation, it’s more welcoming, it seems like it’s more open, and the food has got better,” Murray said. “It’s only been two days, though, but the food is better, better quality, more selection.”

Caroline Weaver, a junior majoring in criminal justice and psychology who lived in West Hall on the Vern during her first year, said the renovations make Pelham feel “less welcoming” and stripped the dining hall of its personality.

“It made it feel kind of clinical, because it’s a lot of white, and it took out any of the character or uniqueness that Pelham had versus the other dining halls,” Weaver said.

Ella Mitchell contributed reporting.