Grand Avenue Market, Cal Poly’s newest convenience market to serve the yakʔitʸutʸu living community and nearby residence halls, is scheduled to open Fall 2019.
In addition to offering snacks, beverages, fruit and Poly Fresh Grab-and-Go items for people on a tight schedule, the market will feature Cal Poly Campus Dining’s new line of heat-and-serve meals, according to University Spokesperson Matt Lazier.
Though Grand Avenue Market is projected to open at the start of the 2019-20 academic year, Lazier wrote in an email to Mustang News that its opening may be pushed later into the quarter due to “a number of variables that remain in the schedule.”
“The closest market for [yakʔitʸutʸu residents] was across campus at the Campus Market, so the retail location at yakʔitʸutʸu provided the perfect opportunity to provide the convenience and products needed at the heart of that neighborhood,” Lazier wrote.
Nutrition freshman Vianna Yang lives in tiłhini, one of the residential halls in the yakʔitʸutʸu community. Yang said eating anywhere on campus is a a far from her hall.
“Food at [Poly Canyon Village] has been my favorite, but it takes me at least 20 minutes to walk there,” Yang said.
With the establishment of the market, Campus Dining hopes to better serve the surrounding campus community, which has grown to nearly 5,000 residents with the opening of yakʔitʸutʸu, Lazier wrote.
Across the street from Grand Avenue Market is the Vista Grande Dining Complex, a more traditional dining hall also scheduled to open Fall 2019. The new facility will offer six new dining options and a lounge space with patio seating, fire pits and game tables.
Though it is scheduled to open a full year after the completion of yakʔitʸutʸu, Grand Avenue Market has always been part of the plan and design of the newest residential community, according to Lazier.