The cheapest place to get food at Carleton may not be running this year, according to a Food Centre co-ordinator.
The Garden Spot, commonly called the G-Spot, is the only on-campus service catering solely to vegans, and runs on a pay-what-you-can basis.
It is a collective independent from the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), but is given space by the association, Food Centre co-ordinator Sarah McCue said.
She said she has been trying to get some response from the G-Spot’s volunteers, but hasn’t heard back from them.
In addition, the G-Spot does not have a place to serve food on campus this year, because the room in the University Centre normally reserved for the G-Spot was given to the Foot Patrol.
The old Foot Patrol office was given to the Clubs and Societies office since it had a large common area “that we felt could be better utilized by the over 200 clubs and societies on campus, for things such as meetings, meeting other clubs and providing them with a lounge,” CUSA vice-president (student services) Fatima Hassan said via email.
Hassan said the G-Spot provided inconsistent service last year and so “it did not seem fair to deny space to our centres when student space is at such a premium.”
Carleton has an exclusive contract with food provider Aramark, and so G-Spot volunteers had to cook the food at a kitchen on Preston Street and then serve breakfast and lunch on campus.
The G-Spot had issues last year when the kitchen it normally used was re-zoned by the city, McCue said. The volunteers had to scramble to find a new place to cook, which affected the hours they could serve food.
The G-Spot was based on a similar collective run at Concordia University. It was initially a part of OPIRG-Carleton, but is now under control of the Food Centre.
“This is actually having a pretty detrimental impact on a lot of students’ access to food on campus, because there are a lot of people, whether it’s someone who has dietary restrictions like gluten-free or vegan, or whether it’s someone who needs a quick, cheap, healthy meal on campus, you can’t find that anymore,” McCue said.
Rooster’s and Oliver’s both offer some meat-free items on their menus, but McCue said there are few other vegan options on campus.
“It’s tough to find. I’m vegan, I could list you all the things I can eat here on one hand,” she said.
“I really wish that it would start operating again, and we’re here to help the G-Spot in whatever means that they want,” McCue said.
