Students will have even more on-campus dining options starting Monday.
The Multipurpose Building is complete and will open to students on Monday, Jan. 19. Part of a long-term renovation plan for Worth Hills, the building will feature both dining venues and study spaces for students.
“We’re looking forward to providing this new additional service for students,” said Mike Russel, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs. “Everyone is going to be really excited.”
The 33,060 square-foot building has room for about 650 students. About one-third of the seating is “hang out space,” Russel said.
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Students will be able to choose from five dining options in the building: The Press, a coffee and panini-style sandwich shop; O’Brien’s Grill, a restaurant serving burgers, fries and similar items; Caliente, a Mexican food restaurant; Magnolia’s Bistro, a restaurant with state-of-the-art equipment and an often changing menu; and the Big Purple Truck, TCU’s own food truck.
“The Magnolia Bistro, I think, is going to be the most exciting,” Russel said. “We provided chefs with state-of-the-art everything. We hope that this gives a blank slate to come up with interesting food items and change it up every day.”
The Big Purple Truck will be bringing back an old student-favorite: the Salanwich.
“Freshmen and sophomores won’t know what we’re talking about,” Russel said. “It’s a chicken caesar salad wrap. It was wickedly popular when 1873 was here.”
The new building also features an outdoor amphitheater. Russel said TheEnd, the organization responsible for organizing weekend programming on campus, could use the space for programming this semester.
“That amphitheater is designed to do outdoor movies,” Russel said. “That’s going to be a cool place to do some programs.”
Robert Wortham, the project manager for the Multipurpose Building, said construction crews tackled a large workload to have the building open so soon.
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“It was a very tight construction period to get it done,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be completed until August, and we moved it up.”
Wortham added the building was nearly opened at the beginning of the semester.
“We considered a partial opening on the 12th, [but] decided to put it on the 19th,” he said.
Russel said administrators hope the new building will provide some relief to Market Square.
“We’re hoping that these four venues will relieve market square’s congestion,” he said. “What we’re hoping to do is be able to really have Market Square change the menus up and try some new and exciting things.”
Though the new building has not yet been named, the decision is at the university cabinet level, Russel said.
“I’m hoping to get a name soon because I’d like to start to brand it a little,” Russel said.
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Wortham said he believes TCU administrators, faculty and students will enjoy the new building.
“It’s a very nice building,” he said. “It has a lot of ‘wow factor’ to it, and I think everybody so far has been really pleased with it.”
The facility will open at 7 a.m. on Monday.
Dining hours (still being finalized):
- The Press: 7 a.m. to 2 a.m.
- O’Brien’s Grill: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Caliente: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Magnolia’s Bistro: 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- The Big Purple Food Truck: 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.