Students who pop into the Night Owl Café to get their nightly popcorn may notice the machine looks slightly different.
That’s because according to Jessica Gagne Cloutier, director of student involvement, a new popcorn machine arrived just in time for the start of the semester.
The old machine was in service for eight years, Gagne Cloutier said.
“When you factor in about 30 weeks a year average of seven days a week, it had done its job,” she said.
She addedsome of the parts of the old machine were starting to show some wear and tear and the heat lamp was not able to be replaced as easily as it was before.
The new machine is nearly identical to the old one, except for some minor differences like the heat lamp being bigger and the light and the heat lamp being on separate switches, she said.
Gage Cloutier said the new machine pops popcorn a little faster.
One person who works at the NOC, Sophomore Alissa Arnold, has been working there since the start of the fall 2023 semester and remarked at how nice it looks.
“It’s very shiny as of right now … a few of them [NOC regulars] have said they come here a lot more now that the machine is shinier,” Arnold said.
As for the taste of the popcorn, Arnold said she does not notice a difference.
“I like a lot of seasoning on my popcorn, so I probably can’t taste it,” Arnold said.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
