ALEX KUETER / ASST. OPINION EDITOR

USD boasts many popular dining spots, such as La Paloma or Oliva for tasty lunches, and Aromas for breakfast. However, the dinner scene is largely dominated by the Student Life Pavillion’s dining hall, known among students as the SLP. The majority of other on campus dining locations close earlier in the afternoon and have less variety, so the SLP is the place to be, or eat, in the evenings for USD students.  

Despite how many students eat at the SLP, it seems as if there are not enough chairs or tables for everyone to fit. While you can easily find open seats at earlier or later times, it is nearly impossible during peak hours due to the hundreds of students who go to the SLP for dinner. 

Students being unable to find tables has led to an annoying phenomenon — reserving tables with water bottles or backpacks. This epidemic is causing the tables to fill up long before people are sitting at them. This practice is of great annoyance to many diners, like myself, who don’t want to carry their food and drinks around campus trying to find a place to sit. Reserving tables with personal items is an irritating practice that should stop for both the safety of the students who do it and also for those who need a place to eat. 

Unofficial reservations have been an increasing problem during dinner at the SLP. Students looking for a table will leave backpacks, water bottles, keys, phones and other personal items at empty tables in order to save them while they enter the area to order their dinner. Lines in the SLP can range from 5-15 minutes during peak times, or longer if students wait for other people or order items from different stations. This means tables can sit empty yet “reserved” for about 20 minutes while students order, causing many who exit the food stations unable to find tables. This becomes especially irritating to those looking for a table, but especially for students who eat very fast or just want to grab dinner between classes and would have been in and out of the saved tables before students came back to sit at them.

Some students, such as USD junior Katelyn Smith, get annoyed with the lack of people occupying tables when students need somewhere to eat.

“I think that it can be a little frustrating coming out with your food and looking for a spot but everything is taken by, like, a Hydro Flask or a Stanley,” Smith said. 

Other students, such as USD senior Brianna Floyd, explained how it can be hard to tell what even counts as a “reservation.” 

“Last week we got dinner, and there was a smoothie on the table that looked like trash, so we sat there and then the people came later and took it and left,” Floyd said.  

Among the students who practice space saving, few see any major problem with it. USD first-year Ava Bubhart stated she saves seats all the time in order to beat the crowds. 

“Me and my friend do it, we’re guilty of that,” Bubhart said.  “We’ll save seats with our water bottles. Especially when like it gets busy, like 5:30 or 6:00. We usually save something cause there’s usually a lot of people.”

Others,   such   as   USD   sophomore Annie  Jackson,  see it as a fair but  frustrating battle for a table. 

“I honestly don’t mind, I think it’s a good way to like claim a spot,” Jackson said. “We do it a lot. During rush hours it’s really hard to get a table, so if you’re coming in early then it’s like OK. We’re part of that circle but its like survival of the fittest, you know.”

When talking about the chance of not getting a table due to other people saving spaces, she described being frustrated when the tables turned.  

“We came before, and there were no tables at all so we had to eat upstairs,” Jackson said. “That was not good at all.” 

The root of this problem is very basic. There are not enough spaces for students eating in the SLP to all sit comfortably — or even at all. The SLP hosts hundreds of students a night and is typically at its busiest from 6-7 p.m. for the dinner rush. With how many students eat at the SLP during rush hours, hundreds of students come and go and many are unable to find seating. While some may take their food to go, others sit outside which is less than desirable in the colder months. Though there is often outdoor space along benches or staircases to sit, once the sun is down it quickly becomes cold and there are no strong lighting options outside, leading some students, like myself, to feel unsafe eating outside. 

Some may think that there is no issue leaving their stuff behind. Who cares about inconveniencing others as long as you get a seat, right? But there is some danger associated with this reservation system that many do not realize. Though USD seems like and is a very safe campus, petty theft can happen, especially due to the open campus nature of our school.  Anyone could walk into the SLP and walk out with a new backpack and $1,000 computer inside. Even students may be tempted to take nice water bottles if they are seemingly left behind. While USD has Public Safety officers around campus, it’s not a good idea to change it as we are not strict with people coming and going. 

Students frequently leave water bottles on tables in the SLP to save seats. Alex Kueter/The USD Vista

Though most students wouldn’t steal items, there is a good chance students’ stuff could be moved from the tables to allow someone else to sit. Workers may collect abandoned items, but there is no guarantee that they will make it back to you. It may be difficult to find or recover your items if they are moved.  

Some students who have had things moved are lucky to find them at other tables, like USD sophomore Sienna Foo.

“Someone moved [my stuff] once to the end of one of the long tables,” Foo said. “It made me a little upset, but I just grabbed it and moved tables.” 

Despite how frustrating it can be to those looking for tables, there are many advantages for those who do save them. When the SLP fills up during busy hours, it can be very hard to find a table if you did not arrive before the crowd, so saving one before you go in can spare you that awkward walk trying to locate one. 

Additionally, the station area where food is ordered is incredibly small and there is very little room to walk around without bumping into people, as echoed by Foo.

“Like a lot of people put down their stuff and go get their food, which is fine because there’s like too many people in one space to have backpacks with people bumping into each other,” Foo said.

Trying to stand in line with a backpack not only gets heavy and uncomfortable, but the additional space taken up by them allows less people to fit in the lines, making them stretch much more. Leaving your backpacks outside at a table can clear up the ordering area and helps with students’ back pain from carrying bags. 

While I can sympathize with these reasons, they don’t seem good enough to justify saving spaces like we are in middle school. A bag or a water bottle is not a person, and should not be used to save a whole table in an already limited dining area. Table scarcity is a real problem and is annoying to many students. But by saving tables and fixing your personal inconvenience, you inconvenience a whole host of other people, many of who may have eaten quickly and left before you got back with your food. So, as students, we should just wait to grab a table when we actually have food in hand.

A backpack at an SLP table often means that table has already been claimed. Jackie Marquez/The USD Vista