Taped to the counter of Crossroads Cafe, a small square of paper reads “Due to inflation, our prices have increased.” While the student-run campus cafe, located in McCullough Student Center, has typically kept costs relatively low — with $4.50–5 smoothies and lattes starting around $3.15 — inflation has forced Middlebury to reevaluate certain aspects of college dining.
According to Dan Detora, executive director of food service operations at Middlebury, the college’s Dining Services are grappling with a 30% increase in food costs, with a 31% increase in coffee specifically. This has resulted in some small shifts in the food offerings around campus. In a March 9 article in The Campus, some students remarked on the disappearance of certain beloved dining hall fare.
Though they’ve tried their best to keep the pressure of inflation off students by limiting price increases across retail operations on campus, Dining Services made the decision to change prices at Crossroads Cafe by adding a 7–15% increase to items (for example, a $4.50 latte would now be $5.15), effective immediately after spring break.
“We have an obligation to get as close to breaking even as we can,” Detora said. “We’re just trying to bridge that gap between inflation.” Detora’s end goal is just to be able to keep Crossroads open.
“I’ve noticed that less and less people are getting non-dairy milk,” Barista Amina Matavia ’23 said. “It might be that the trend for non-dairy milks is dying along with the fact that everything is so expensive now that people might think that the extra 85 cents for oat milk isn’t worth it anymore.”
Some students who spoke to The Campus do not mind the change in prices. “I didn’t even notice that prices had changed,” Elaine Zhang ’23 said. However, other students are concerned about future increases in price.
“I mean I don’t really mind the increase now,” Oliscia Thornton ’26 said. “Especially since it’s so small, but I think that if prices continue to climb, then that could be a problem.”
Similarly, Orlando Caceres ’25 said, “I think it’s always unfortunate when prices go up, but there’s reasons for it, so we just do what we can.”
While Malia Rutherford ’26 still plans on going to Crossroads, she noted how she felt price tags across the college were increasing.
“The timing of the price increase is kind of inconvenient, especially after they announced that tuition is increasing,” she said. “It just feels like everything is getting more expensive.”
The decision to raise prices at Crossroads comes just a month after Kim Downs-Burns, associate vice-president of Student Financial Services, emailed students about a 4.5% rise in tuition. In the email, Downs-Burns stresses the college’s commitment to “keeping the increase lower than the rate of inflation, which currently sits at over 6 percent.”
