A new café, an ice cream shop, and Asian street food are among the new campus dining options that UC Riverside students and employees can discover this fall.
The campus will also be able to enjoy expanded hours at NOODS: The Noodle Bar and look forward to the launch of an online cake ordering service.
Meanwhile, campus venues like the Barn and the Stable at the Barn are back to regular fall hours with activities like live music returning soon.
Scoops Ice Cream Shop
The Scoops Ice Cream Shop at the HUB opened the first day of the fall quarter, offering ice cream in scoops or cones as well as ice cream sundaes, soda floats, and a cookie sandwich. Customers can choose between a variety of flavors including ones made from UCR citrus in collaboration with a boutique creamery. The chocolate citrus and vanilla citrus flavors will also be sold in four-ounce cups at Scotty’s C-stores.
Scoops is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Biz Cafe
Dining Services also opened Biz Café at the new School of Business building. The 475-square-foot coffee shop is located at the lobby of the new building next to the multipurpose room and outdoor patio with plentiful seating.
The café is the only campus location offering Klatch Koffee, the Rancho Cucamonga-based coffee business started by a UCR alumnus. It will feature a signature UCR coffee blend along with pastries and bagel sandwiches.
The new shop fills an important need in the southeast area of campus, which lacked for other food options, said Cedric Martin, director of residential dining.
Biz Café is open 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
NOODS
NOODS had a successful launch in April, opening at the Market at Glen Mor and offering an assortment of noodles and sauces in different Asian styles, which customers can choose in different combinations.
Initially, it was only open from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. to meet a specific demand for a late-night campus dining option. For fall quarter, NOODS is now open 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Monday through Thursday and 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Sunday.
The venue has been popular with students, drawing large crowds, but Dining Services has also been listening to customers and refining the menu, said Lanette Dickerson, culinary director.
While it was closed over the summer, the culinary team sourced better noodles and rewrote and tested the recipes for different sauces based on the feedback they got, she said. The venue also added a poke station, which like the noodle bar allows customers to mix protein and sauces to their taste.
Dickerson is particularly pleased with the vegan tofu options, which provide three options: plain, with marinade, and a spicy ground tofu.
“We always like to say once these operations come to life, the communities that they’re in and our customers really shape what we end up doing,” she said.
Street Eats
Dining Services is also continuing to refine and expand the food counter at the Market at North District, adding Asian street food and a ramen bar. The menu items were tested out a few weeks before graduation in the spring and received a positive response, Dickerson said.
The new Street Eats items include Korean rice bowls, beef bulgogi, spicy gochujang chicken, a potato-crusted mozzarella Korean corn dog, and Japanese karaage fried chicken. The convenience store, which already has a popular boba station, has also added an assortment of packaged Asian snacks.
At the ramen station, customers can make their choice, insert their ramen bowl into a machine, and have it ready in under five minutes. A topping bar includes fish cake, nori shredded seaweed, Korean pickled radish, and a variety of other options.
Street Eats is open 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday through Friday.
Sweet Tooth Bakery
Dining Services has already produced cookies, pastries, and other desserts for campus cafes and other dining venues, from the bakery at Glasgow Residential Restaurant, using the Sweet Tooth Bakery name. In November, it will be expanding to offer made-to-order cakes.
Cakes will be available in eight-inch and ten-inch sizes and four different cake, filling, and frosting flavors including chocolate and vanilla. Customers can order custom messages for special occasions like birthdays as well as cakes with UCR-themed designs.
“We realized we have these awesome bakers at our bakery, all this baking equipment and lots of cake experience,” Martin said. “We decided it would be great to come up with a cake program where students, staff, and parents can all go online and pick the cake they want.”
The cake shop and online ordering system are expected to debut in November.
Scotty’s, coffee changes
At the north end of campus, Dining Services has reopened a Scotty’s C-store that had been closed since 2020 due to the pandemic. The store, located between Pentland Hills and Glen Mor student housing, has added kosher food products and will debut a Mediterranean-themed menu in November or the winter quarter.
Starting this fall, Dining Services switched from Starbucks to Seattle’s Best Coffee as its provider at Ivan’s, Bytes, and Emerbee’s cafes. However, it will be going through a request for proposal process in which coffee vendors can seek to become the long-term supplier for campus venues. That process will begin in November or December and is expected to continue through the fall quarter.
“We want to be able to get a lot of good feedback from campus and some of the stakeholders across campus,” Martin said.
Visit the Dining Services website for more information on dining venues hours, menus, and locations.
Header image: Culinary Director Lanette Dickerson at the Street Eats food station at the Market at North District.
