No timeline for opening of Pita on the Run replacement in MacHall, SU says

By Ashar Memon, March 2 2019 —

Six months after Pita on the Run in MacHall closed, the Students’ Union can’t say when its replacement, U-Toppings Pizza, will open.

SU vice-president operations and finance Kevin Dang said that the delayed opening is due to complications with the owner of the pizza-by-the-slice vendor, and not on the SU’s end.

“As soon as we get the greenlight from the ownership group, then we’re ready to jump in and make all the changes. We’re just kind of waiting for that greenlight,” Dang said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the issues are things that the owner [of U-Topping Pizza] is dealing with and it’s out of our hands in that way.”

Dang declined to comment further on why the location has taken longer than expected to open, saying that he doesn’t want to speak on behalf of the owner. He said he doesn’t have a timeline for when it will open.

“I don’t want to guess right now, just because again they’re dealing with things on their end,” he added.

The MacHall stall previously occupied by Pita on the Run was leased out to a new owner in the summer of 2018. However, despite it shutting down, Pita on the Run’s sign remains on the stall and no work appears to have been done to the location.

Dang says that the SU has been collecting rent from the group leasing out the location, despite them not operating yet. The SU manages the operations of MacHall and receives revenue from all of its third-party vendors.

The SU first publicly revealed that the new vendor will be U-Toppings Pizza on Oct. 2, 2018 during a meeting of the Students’ Legislative Council. Dang said that he didn’t have a timeline for the opening at the time.

“But, you know, you obviously want to do it as soon as possible,” Dang said. “So, yeah, we’ve been waiting on them and their side of things for a while now. I know that it’s a bit of an inconvenience for students because it is one of the vendors in MacHall and it’s always super busy, so we hope to get that up and running as soon as we can.”