The most important meal of the day!

On 24th September, Imperial College Union announced it would now be serving breakfast in FiveSixEight, ahead of the new academic year.

A year on from the widely unpopular decision to scrap breakfast in the Senior Common Room (SCR), students and staff alike can now enjoy a delicious breakfast in the Union. This change comes amongst a slew of recent changes to the Commercial Services offered on campus, including changes to the cost of access to Imperial's sports centre, Ethos (as reported by Felix in July).

The Union breakfast menu is divided into two sections, a “Grab & Go” menu and a “Sit & Graze” menu. As the name suggests, the “Grab & Go” menu is intended for students who want to “grab some food quickly before they go to lectures”, while the Sit & Graze menu allows for those with spare time to “sit down… chat with their friends, socialise” and more.

The whole menu is available for anyone sitting down to eat, i.e. food from the “Grab and Go” menu is still available to eat-in. However, anyone wanting to order food to take away will only be able to do so from the “Grab & Go” menu.

Felix caught up with Claudia Caravello, the Deputy President (Financial Services), who explained the Union’s decision to start offering breakfast:

“We started breakfast because SCR stopped breakfast; that was a College decision… it was making a big loss, yet students really wanted breakfast provision. We looked into whether it was reasonable for us to do it, which it was, so we started it!”

Plans for the Union to offer breakfast began back in March with the chef and Julia Mattingley, the Head of Commercial services.

The “Grab & Go” service is allegedly much quicker than normal service. Claudia confirmed this, commenting the following:

“I ordered a breakfast muffin, which I would highly recommend; delicious! That took me 7 minutes to get my order and apparently that was one of the slowest orders of the day. Others were getting theirs in 2-3 minutes… I was really impressed with how quick "Grab & Go" works.”

The Union breakfast is being offered on a trial basis, with items from the “Sit and Graze” menu available from 10 am to 11.30 am and “Grab & Go” items available from 8 am to 11.30.am. As the breakfast is still on a trial basis, your feedback is crucial! To share feedback on your Union breakfast experience, please contact Beit bars via e-mail at beitvenues@imperial.ac.uk. Alternatively you can contact Julia Mattingley, the Head of Commercial Services, via e-mail at j.mattingley@imperial.ac.uk.