It’s not entirely impossible to find food on campus during the weekend, but options are limited.

Students who pay for their meal plans expect to be able to eat whenever they are hungry, but from Friday through Sunday the residential dining halls operate on a reduced schedule, as opposed to their usual hours of operation.

When dinner ends at 6:30 p.m. in most residence halls, NIU students only can find food at Stevenson’s grill, which operates from 7 to 11 p.m. Students can purchase a variety of packaged food and beverages from Neptune’s Trident, Lincoln’s Annex or in Stevenson’s Corner Store, but these stores require Huskie Bucks. For students without Huskie Bucks, the only option left is carry-out.

Yamini Ramakrishnan, a freshman undecided liberal arts and sciences major, didn’t purchase Huskie Bucks, and she only can eat at certain times and at certain places.

“We are already spending so much non-refundable money on our weekly meal plan, and to not be able to use it during reasonable hours on the weekends is not fair,” Ramakrishnan said. “I am forced to spend money that I don’t have on food I shouldn’t have to buy.”

Ralph Chaplin, director of residence hall food services, said because many students go home on weekends, the number of students who eat in the dining halls changes.

“Historically, we’ve seen that Friday nights we have fewer customers and that’s prompted a 6:30 p.m. closure versus the 7 p.m. that we have during the rest of the week,” Chaplin said. “The hours are shortened again — we have fewer residents that are here on the weekend. We haven’t had a breakfast on Saturday or Sunday for a number of years and that’s why we’ve opened at 10:30 a.m. to kind of take the approach of a late breakfast/early lunch.”

On Saturday and Sunday, dining halls are only open at certain hours of the day, and students sometimes have to eat in a building other than their own.

“I think it’s dumb that some of the dining halls are not open on the weekends,” freshman business major Karl Koenigsberger. “It’s fine now because it’s nicer weather outside, but when it gets colder I’m not going to want to walk across campus just to eat a meal.”

While the dining halls’ weekend schedule may not be convenient for some, Chaplin said they try to serve food at normal eating times.

“We’re open until typically the standard time that lunches would be during the week and then re-open, I believe it’s the 4 to 4:30 [p.m.] time range and then go until 6 or 6:30 [p.m.] on the weekends.”

Most students feel that the dining halls’ hours of operation on weekends need to change.

“The students put their money into getting dining dollars and we can hardly use them because the dining halls are never open on the weekends,” said Sue Udovich, a freshman elementary education major. “The weekend hours should be the same as the weekday hours.”