This year was the first year that I started to go to food service regularly. After two years of buying lunch almost daily at Mulberry’s, I decided to try something new. In an attempt to escape the high prices and long lines of Mulberry’s, I purchased lunch at our very own Piper Café. I was pleasantly surprised. Although the lines were still long and the prices still high, I could get a quality lunch everyday with the ten dollars my parents gave me every morning. Now however, that’s changed.
Piper Café has recently introduced a policy to no longer accept either cash or debit cards, making it extremely difficult for students like me to purchase their everyday lunch. According to the Piper Café page on our school’s website, “Because of fast pay cards and the healthier options that are now available, more students are visiting the Student Center during brunch and lunch.” This is simply not true. Throughout this school year, I’ve noticed that the cash only line at the Piper Café is consistently longer at lunch. Therefore, students aren’t visiting the Student Center more, but rather less, as students not willing to use the bothersome ID card system are alienated. Is it really worth not serving students who carry cash just to save a few seconds with every transaction?
The Piper Café website also states that it wants “to change the eating behavior of students at PHS such that an increased amount of students will eat a more nutritious lunch”. If our school really wanted to make sure lots of our students have access to a nutritious lunch, it wouldn’t exclude those who simply carry cash or a debit card. Many students at PHS rely on Piper Café for their lunch everyday, and to completely disregard many of them is insane.
When I first learned about the new policy on the first day back from Thanksgiving Break, Chef M’Lisa told me that I could always add cash to my card at the office, which although inconvenient, seemed like a reasonable solution. The following day, after missing breakfast because I woke up late, I asked to refill my card at the office during the beginning of brunch, in the hopes of being able to get some breakfast to fuel me until lunch. Yet I was told simply that Mr. Mapes wasn’t available and that I would just have to wait until later.
If Piper Café really aims to deliver a nutritious meal to PHS students, they need to repeal this new policy. Students not only deserve a nutritious meal, but also a quick and easy way to get it as well. By excluding students who pay with cash, the Piper Café is not only losing business, but also venturing away from their mission statement of encouraging students to eat a more nutritious lunch.
