Opinion: Citrus food truck: an inconvenience?

Citrus College needs to have a better location for the food truck on campus.

Citrus started having the Gourmet Food Truck on campus in the spring semester of 2024.

The food truck is always parked in the Campus Center Mall, right in front of the Hayden Memorial Library. Which is what is said on Citrus’ website.

What the website doesn’t say, is that it’s parked right in the middle of a path that students regularly use to get to their classes. 

Before Citrus had a food truck, students could freely walk on that path when going to class, leaving or heading into the library or going to the Owl Bookshop. 

Now, students have to weave their way through the line of students that starts from the food truck and blocks the path. 

The awkward ‘sorry’s’ and ‘excuse me’s’ exchanged could number in the thousands. 

The line for the food truck doesn’t have a formal direction or order. 

Students coming to the line have to ask others if they’re in line or not, so others could know where to go, because there is no order.

Because the path the food truck is located on wasn’t originally meant to have lines stretching vertically across, the students have to file behind each other in the dirt.

While it’s still undetermined if weather will permanently cool down for fall, California had, during the summer and early fall, experienced a heatwave with temperatures over 100 degrees.

Before this wouldn’t have been a problem for students getting food, as when the Owl Cafe and Grill used to be open and students could wait in line in a room with air conditioning. 

But, as the Owl Cafe and Grill is no longer open and students now get their food from the food truck, students have to line up in the heat for food.

This also leads to the assumption that during the upcoming rainy season, students will still have to line up on the path and in the mud and dirt, in the rain for food.

Students will end up soaked in the rain while waiting for their food and there’s the possibility that their food will get wet as well.

The food truck has been moved in the past for the convenience of events happening on campus. Examples include Transfer Fair in October and the Saluting Our Veterans event in November, as the food truck was moved to the path that stretches right across the front of the Hayden Memorial Library. 

This path is tighter than the previous location and a bigger inconvenience to move past with the food truck there.

The college needs to address that the food truck needs to be parked in a better location that allows students to not be idling in a common path when lining up for food.