CSUN housing’s new Bamboo Terrace restaurant, an expansion of Geronimo’s, begins construction next week and will open in August 2015 as discussed by the executive committee on Thursday.
“It will be like Bamboo on steroids,” said Betsy Corrigan, the associate director of campus dining, referring to the Bamboo located in The Marketplace on campus.
While CSUN housing will be accommodating 400 more students this fall with the completion of the Phase II housing structures, Corrigan hopes to receive more walk-ins from students and faculty who don’t normally eat at the establishment, which is located at the corner of Zelzah and Lassen.
Rick Evans, executive director of the University Corporation, said the addition will be “first class dining.”
The restaurant, which broke ground in January, will feature pan-Asian food (both authentic and Americanized).
CSUN has already recruited Benjawan Kumnudsri, a chef from Pepperdine University, and has a menu complete with 10 weeks worth of food.
Each week, the restaurant will feature food from a different region of China, of which there are five.
“People will walk in, slide their meal plan card, and have this bank of food to choose from,” Corrigan said.
The restaurant will feature five different types of salad, as well as rice, soup, sushi, dessert, tea and more.
“You will be able to get a hamburger at Geronimo’s and then head on over to Bamboo and get some sushi,” Corrigan said.
The project has been two and a half years in the making, and CSUN executives spoke with local restaurants and the staff at UCLA’s Feast at Rieber restaurant to find out what worked and what didn’t.
Corrigan said that the food will be healthy and they know what will be going into it by getting their products from local vendors.
The space being renovated measures approximately 6,900 square feet and has a total budget of $3.45 million.
Visitors will have three different dining areas to choose from, including a forest area, a rural area and an urban area.
Corrigan hopes the new dining facility will remind visitors of downtown Tokyo.
Outdoor seating will also be available at the new establishment, which was off-limits before.
“Those doors that were closed shut are now being opened,” Corrigan said. “You can dine alfresco if you want to.”
