After a period of uncertainty, the restaurant is now operating once again, and with a new menu
Photo by Karley Sider.
“The Grad House: Quietly Open Again.” That is the heading that you are greeted with when you open the UVic Grad House website.
Located beside the Student Union Building, and housed within the Halpern Centre for Graduate Students, the Grad House has had a rocky past couple of years in terms of ensuring its preservation. But this semester, it has finally reopened for staff and students to enjoy again.
So what is the Grad House?
The Grad House was once operated by UVic as a food service location, before it was taken over by the Graduate Students Society (GSS) to function as a graduate student space. Today, it seems to be a hidden gem on the edge of campus, as a restaurant with made to order meals, a full bar, and courtyard patio views.
Although it has the word “grad” in its name, the Grad House is open to both graduate and undergraduate students to relax and grab a bite to eat or to get together with classmates to study. Faculty, staff, and the broader community are welcome too.
The Grad House’s recent, tumultuous journey largely has to do with the effects of COVID-19.
Neil Barney, GSS operations and services manager, completed his graduate degree at UVic and has been working for the GSS ever since. He perhaps best understands the consequences of COVID-19 on the Grad House.
“So the big shutdown, the most recent shutdown, was COVID, as people might expect,” said Barney. “We shut down in March 2020 and then it was a matter of having suitable comfort and suitable will to bring it back.”
Much of the GSS board members’ apprehension in bringing back the Grad House also had to do with anxieties involving monetary issues that began pre-COVID.
“Before [it] closed, the Grad House was — there’s no gentle way to say this — hemorrhaging money,” said Barney. “There was a bit of anxiety around that [from] some of our board members, particularly last year, when it went to referendum, [they] remembered that period of the Grad House. And so there was anxiety around that, as well as … they were very conscious of COVID. And they were very much like: ‘how can we open a restaurant?’”
These anxieties led to the organization of a referendum to see what students and other UVic personnel believed to be the best course of action in deciding the fate of the Grad House.
The question was whether the Grad House would continue being a restaurant or if the space would be utilized differently, such as a big study space for students. Ultimately, the mandate concluded that the Grad House should continue its operations and continue being a restaurant.
While this meant the triumphant return of the Grad House with the addition of a new menu this past September, some business has been slow to return.
“We [previously] did a lot of lunchtime business with faculty and staff, and so we could almost use faculty and staff lunch dollars to subsidize grad student stuff,” said Barney. “What we’ve seen … is a really, really strong return from grad students to the space, but not those faculty and staff.”
Still, as the holidays approach, the Grad House seems to be picking up more business, and as an incentive for grad students to continue coming back, they are maintaining a discount of $1 off all food items for grad students (as long as you bring your OneCard).
“The more we can do to leverage this space as a community space for grad students, the happier we are,” said Barney. “Everyone approaches grad school differently, but going and grabbing beers with grad students who were in my department or not in my department, you know, was a thing that I really liked doing in grad school.”
In terms of special events, Barney encourages grad students to come by on Wednesdays to take advantage of free coffee and baked goods that the Grad House provides, as well as the GSS board rooms also within the Halpern Centre that are free for grad students to book.
“Grad school’s really stressful,” said Barney. “[We want to] make [the Halpern Centre] a space that people can engage with as much as they want, ideally in ways that are cheap or free and just a place where people are welcome, people are safe, … and can hang out …That’s the driving thing that’s shaping what we’re trying to do.”
