Students at Citrus College have two main ways of getting food or drinks on campus – one being the Owl Café and the other being the vending machines.
The Owl Café is open from 7:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Monday – Thursday. The café serves breakfast and lunch items.
The vending machines are available 24 hours a day.
However, students often find issues with the machines.
“They’d be helpful if they weren’t broken down all the time,” said Brenda Jimenez, a photography major.
Clarion staff recorded 35 vending machines on campus. On May 26, 11 of the machines had issues preventing them from performing their intended purpose.
“I don’t even use the school vending machines because I know how often they don’t work,” said Alaric Burgess, a studio arts major. “…They don’t have very good stuff anyways.”
The machines that work best are inside the Owl Café. These machines are rarely broken, and if an issue happens, the students can more easily talk to campus staff about getting the issue fixed. The three machines on the athletics side of campus are not working.
“The one by the Visual Arts building will let you buy the item, but you don’t get to receive it since the compartment doesn’t open for you to grab it,” said Joon Carrasco, a ceramics major.
Other than being off, the main issue found was machines being cash or card only; then occasionally, it rejects that payment method. Some have mechanisms that drop drinks. Some machines are mostly operational, but some of the rows won’t dispense the item chosen.
The vending machines have snacks, candy, microwaveable foods, coffee, sports drinks and one has ice cream. The machines near the art and music buildings have drinks and snacks; however, no hot foods. The Owl Café and buildings next to the vending machines by the cosmetology department have microwaves.
This map shows the location of vending machines on campus, the type of items offered, and whether or not they worked when data was collected.
