Students and alumni expressed dismay and frustration online after news broke on Friday that Wildcat Den has closed to accommodate an on-campus Chick-fil-A set to open this fall. Students on social media demanded accountability from Dining Services over the abrupt closure which was made without input from the Student Government Association (SGA) and has not been officially communicated with students.
Students spoke fondly of Wildcat Den’s welcoming and relaxed atmosphere, noting its location in the Baker Sports Complex and distance from the heart of campus contributed to its charm.
“It’s a bit farther removed from the campus and the other dining locations. I think that it’s a great place to just go and meet people. It’s kind of a slower pace than the rest of the campus,” Abby Smetana ‘27 said.
Smetana and Bella Bagnoli ‘28, who both worked the 7am morning prep shift last year assisting three full time employees prepare sandwiches, said Wildcat Den offered some of the highest quality food on campus. The location was especially popular with athletes and students with dietary restrictions. According to the Davidson College website, it served Boar’s Head meats and cheeses and Neomonde Bakery breads.
“It seemed to use pretty fresh ingredients. It seemed to use pretty healthy ingredients. I always felt good after eating it. It just didn’t feel very processed,” Ethan Barnett ‘27 said.
Women’s Track and Field team captain Chris-Ann Nelson ‘26, who ate lunch at Wildcat Den almost every day, said the closure is a big blow to athletes. “The track team is worried about how we can eat lunch and make sure that we’re properly fueled for our practices in the afternoons,” Nelson said. “Finding a healthier replacement [than Chick-fil-A or Davis Cafe] is the big thing that my teammates are talking about.”
Smetana and Bagnoli both spoke highly of their time working at Wildcat Den. “Even though my shifts were at 7am, I really enjoyed working with the full time staff,” Bagnoli said.
Although she is excited for the new Chick-fil-A, Bagnoli is disappointed that it will come at the expense of an existing location. “I think everyone was under the impression that there would be an extra option and it wouldn’t be replacing this other really healthy option,” Bagnoli said.
By 3:00pm on July 22, a Change.org petition urging Dining Services to “reconsider the decision to close [Wildcat] Den with student input” had received 125 verified signatures.
According to Pinky Varghese, the director of dining services, Wildcat Den is closing because Dining Services struggled to hire enough staff to operate the new location. Ethan Barnett ‘27 takes issue with this justification. “I don’t understand how they could have not known that this was going to happen,” Barnett said.
“I don’t understand what new information has come to light that’s caused them to suddenly, in the middle of the summer, decide this,” Barnett continued. “When they were thinking about adding Chick-fil-A, they knew how many student workers they had. They knew, I’m sure, how many they would need to staff Chick-fil-A.”
Varghese said “there’s not enough folks coming there,” noting that Wildcat Den, which was open from 11am until 2pm on Monday through Friday, had more limited hours than Chick-fil-A. The new location will be open from 11am until 9pm on Monday through Saturday.
Some students dispute Varghese’s characterization. “Anytime that I would go there to grab a bite to eat, they were always packed. Even right before classes started, people would be just chatting, grabbing a sandwich,” Bagnoli said.
Wildcat Den’s closure is especially objectionable to those who oppose the new Chick-fil-A set to open this fall due to the company’s history of donating to anti-LGBTQ+ groups. The company stopped donating to these groups in 2012 and 2019, according to CNN, although The Daily Beast reported that Chick-fil-A Chairman Dan Cathy donated to a group that opposes gay rights in 2021.
“I haven’t personally eaten Chick-fil-A in years because of their political ideologies, and honestly, I don’t see that their political ideologies fit with Davidson,” Brynn Tighe ‘28 said.
Sophia Tsioulcas-Sherman ‘28 echoes Tighe’s sentiment. “[Dining Services] is replacing what was a popular and arguably the healthiest dining option on campus with more fried fast food with a political agenda that is completely counterintuitive to everything the college claims to support.”
Former SGA Vice President Oğuzhan Çölkesen ‘23 commented on The Davidsonian’s instagram post about the closure that, “It’ll be good to know Davidson’s priorities lie with corporate fried chicken rather than house-made healthy sandwiches when the end of the fiscal year donation texts start coming.”
Some students say the decision to forego input from SGA reflects poorly on Dining Services—and the College administration more broadly.
“In all of the communication that comes from the administration, there’s this repetition of ‘Davidson is a community of trust,’” Tsioulcas-Sherman said. “Refusing to even inform SGA of this change undermines that trust and undermines a lot of the effort that’s gone into building this sense of community between students and the administration.”
Others might just hope The Yowl has not given Dining Services its next idea. “Chambers nutrient tubes to replace commons. Commons solid food cited as too much work,” The Yowl commented on instagram.