Dining scene to change

The dining scene for the Temple community will look different by the time the majority of students return to Main Campus in August.

Cosí, a nationwide soup, salad and sandwich restaurant, will be open in Pearson-McGonigle Hall and will accept meal plans. Jake’s Wayback Burgers, also a national brand, will be moving to the corner of Cecil B. Moore Avenue and North Sydenham Street.

Sodexo, Temple’s food services provider, approached Cosí with an offer to be a franchisee. This would allow Sodexo to use the Cosí name, trademarks and recipes while managing the location itself. This is a comparable arrangement to the Starbucks in the first floor of the TECH Center.

“Cosí was immediately very interested,” Richard Rumer, associate vice president of business services, said.

The payment options accepted at Cosí will be Diamond Dollars, cash, credit cards and meal plans. The last of those options will work as “meal equivalencies,” like the Student Center food fourt, where a meal has an equivalent dollar value for buying products there. These current values vary by meal time and can be found on Temple Dining Services’ website, tudining.com.

The menu mostly consists of soups, bagels, salads and wraps, as well as flatbread sandwiches, and will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cosí was founded in 1996 based on a café in Paris and has grown to more than 100 restaurants across 16 states.

“We are working with the national brand to bring a state-of-the-art Cosí to Pearson-McGonigle Hall,” Nathan Quinn, marketing director of Sodexo, said in an email.

Expanding the dining options on the southwest side of Main Campus, Jake’s Wayback Burger will not only serve burgers, but also milkshakes, salads, hotdogs and nachos.

This sit-down restaurant will be independently run and will accept Diamond Dollars, cash and credit cards. This is a similar partnership with Temple as many of the restaurants along Cecil B. Moore Avenue such as Subway, Rita’s Water Ice and City View Pizza.

Jake’s was founded in 1991 in Newark, Del., and has grown to more than 60 locations, the majority of which are along the East Coast. There is one other location in Philadelphia, at the Northeast Village Shopping Center, near the Northeast Philadelphia Airport.

“This brings two more nationally branded dining locations to campus,” Rumer said.

Cosí will be opening in early August for a “soft launch” and will have its grand opening in the first week of classes, Quinn said. Jake’s will be opening for the beginning of the Fall 2013 semester as well.

However, these will not be the only dining additions to campus. The Morgan Hall dining complex is also set to open in August and will include 11 food concepts on two floors, all of which will accept meal plans.

Marcus McCarthy can be reached at marcus.mccarthy@temple.edu.