Ricky Cole eating his wings. Jake Bradner/ The Whetstone

Ricky Cole eating his wings. Jake Bradner/ The Whetstone

By Jake Bradner, The Whetstone

Junior Ricky Cole was eating the meal he ordered from The Den while sitting at his usual spot near The Wolverine Stop.

“I hate it,” Cole said. “While incoming freshmen may not notice any of these changes, we as upper classmen most certainly do.”

Since the beginning of this semester, prices for food at The Den have increased, leaving some students unhappy.

Murt Murray, a cashier at The Den, said the price raise was supposed to happen last year.

“We didn’t find out until the middle of the semester (about the price increase),” she said. “So, instead of raising the price during the middle of the semester, we adjusted them this year.”

Many students don’t like this year’s prices.

“It’s a bit much,” senior Eugene Nelson said. “For some that come from hard families, I think it’s a little too much.”

The prices of items like the cheese quesadilla, Philly cheesesteak, and mozzarella sticks have increased twenty cents to a dollar from last year. However, the biggest difference in price from last year is “regular” wings.

Last year, the price of a dozen regular wings was $6.99; this year, 10 wings cost $10.99.

But this $4 increase is less than the price of the wings during the first two weeks of this semester. Then, Wesley students paid $14.99 for a dozen regular wings,
$8 more than what it was last year.

Because of complaints, Aramark decreased the price to $10.99. When they did that, however, they decreased the number of wings from twelve to ten.

“We’ve got many complaints about the wings,” Murray said. “So we tried to fix it, that way we could budget it and still make money off of it, and as a result, we reduced it to $10.99 and took two wings out of the box.”

Some students have expressed disappointment about the variety on the menu this year compared to last year.

“I don’t like the menu as much as I did last year because it doesn’t have as much selection,” Cole said. “I really miss the breakfast items on the menu.”

Sophomore Travis Barcliff had a similar complaint.

“I think breakfast items should be on the menu as well,” he said.

Murray said when The Den doesn’t sell many of its items on the menu, they stop offering them.

“When we sold hot dogs, we didn’t really sell many of those,” she said. “So we were spending more money to purchase a case of hot dogs and not gaining it back in profit. We normally sold five or six hot dogs out of the pack, so we’d eventually have to trash them after a couple days.”

Regardless of the changes, students continue to buy food from The Den.

“It may not be the same from last year, but I like excessively coming to The Den,” Cole says. “I just got to deal with it right now, but it’s still good.”