The Refter will keep the name ‘The Refter’. This week, staff will do test runs with groups of students and staff, and from early March, the refurbished food court restaurant will open its doors to everyone.

If you’ve spent months on the refurbishment of the Refter and if you’ve been thinking only in terms of shiny new food courts, it’s logical that you might have a moment in which you wonder whether ’the Refter’ is still a suitable name, says Gerben Smit. But the boss of Facilities & Services has some soothing words for all campus sceptics: the Refter will not be re-christened ‘Food Court’ or ‘Radboud Restaurant’. It will just stay ’the Refter’. ‘Because everyone knows that name’, he explains. ‘It’s just right.’
The proposed name change, pondered even by Executive Board and the Marketing and Communications Department, is therefore history.

Mama Maria’s

Within the good old Refter, there will be some new names introduced. Each of the six ‘islands’ will be given its own name. Panama is the place for coffee, cake and breakfast. Sousa has soup, filled rolls and salads. Angus No. 5 serves grilled dishes, burgers and fries. Deli Tiger is the Asian department and Mama Maria’s serves pizzas and oven dishes. Anyone craving the classic hot Refter meals should go to Craft.

‘Whole families used to come and eat at the Refter’

The first guests will be allowed into the Refter at the end of this week. ‘We’re going to do test runs with small groups’, Smit explains. Staff will have already done dry runs with the equipment, which is all brand-new. ‘Ovens, deep-fryers and indoor barbecues. Our people have to get used to them first.’ The colleagues serving coffee will all take a barista course, to learn how to make those cute hearts in the cappuccino foam. There will be a huge selection of all kinds of coffee and tea available, Smit promises.

Construction workers

Facilities & Services will personally invite the students who are to act as a test panel. And the construction workers who have been working under the Refter roof for months are also invited to be guinea pigs for a day. Smit hopes that the Refter will then open a week later for everyone. The official opening is on Tuesday 26 March. There are themed days around the opening. For example, Meet the World, an evening in which recipes will be cooked that have been submitted by guests and international guests.
‘And since we will be open every evening from now on until 8 p.m., we are inviting the whole neighbourhood on Friday 29 March’, says Smit. ‘Whole families used to come and eat at the Refter.’

The new concept is so special, he says, that he’s sure that those neighbourhood residents will come back again. ‘We’ve created something which is new to the Nijmegen region. People won’t recognise the Refter anymore.’

Facilities & Services announced earlier that the restaurant would also contain a ‘study environment, with 150 places, and that there will be a terrace at the Berchmanianum side. The selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes will be extended. Before the refurbishment, which started in the summer of 2018, visitors could only choose one of three main dishes, of which one was meatless. But pancakes will still be served, Smit promises.