Students craving Wheat State Pizza on Sundays now only have to walk as far as the Wildcat Café.

Although anyone can purchase pizza by the slice for $2, Catering Coordinator Tanya Sieber said it was introduced in the café Nov. 2 as part of a trial run to see if students with meal plans would opt for Wheat State on Sundays instead of using their flex-plans or cash when the cafeteria is closed.

“We doubled the number of meal plan participants that we had had prior to introducing the Wheat State Pizza idea. So that to me is a good sign they liked it,” she said.

Sieber said on average about 60 students with meal plans were taking advantage of the current items available to them such as hot dogs, bratwursts, corn dogs, pizza and calzones, which were offered as part of a meal including a drink and side on Sundays when the cafeteria is closed. Students were required to pay for all other items in the café with cash or flex-plans.

After Wheat State catered convocation this year, Seiber decided to introduce it without any advertisement to gauge students’ reactions. Sieber said 95 people used their meal plans Nov. 2, which was up from an average of 60 the previous three to four weeks.

Wheat State was brought in for the second time Sunday and resulted in 135 people using their meal plans to purchase pizza, which rose from 20 pizzas consumed to 55.

“It grew in popularity even over one week,” Sieber said. “We went through almost three times as many pizzas (Sunday) as we had gone through the Sunday before.”

In the past, the cafeteria was kept open so students could have access to a deli bar and salad bar. However, only 15 to 20 people would take advantage of it. To conserve energy, the items were moved into the café, but the food took up too much room and students still weren’t taking advantage of the idea.

Last year, the university restricted the Sunday meal plan options to five items in the café, which included chicken strip and hamburger meals. Sieber said students loved it, but the staff was overwhelmed.

“We got absolutely buried. We were serving 150 to 175 meals every Sunday,” Sieber said.

Seiber said the café isn’t equipped to serve that many meals daily, which led to a decline in service and food quality as well as morale.

“When you’re trying to manage more business than you can adequately staff or handle within your facility, something’s got to give,” she said.

For this reason, the menu was restricted at the beginning of the year to items that could be placed in the warmer such as hot dogs and bratwursts.

When students didn’t respond well to the changes made at the beginning of the year, Seiber decided to offer pizza from Wheat State.

She said response cards students filled out Nov. 2 were mostly positive, and with the increase in the number of students using their meals plans, she thinks the university may have found a solution that makes a majority of people happy.

Sophomore Cameron Thissen said he’s pleased he’ll be able to use his meal plan more and cut back on his flex-plan, which he used a lot at the beginning of the year because he didn’t like the options.

“The pizza’s good. I do like the variety,” he said. “It’s better than the bratwursts and other stuff.”

Seiber said students using their meal plans get two slices of pizza, a drink and choice of side such as veggies and dip, salad, chips, yogurt and fruit. The kinds of pizza will vary week to week depending on student tastes and includes a vegetarian whole-wheat pizza, she said.

Sophomore Karenah Spencer thinks a sandwich or an alternative to pizza should be considered, though.

“I really like the pizza, but after awhile I’m sure I’ll get (tired) of eating pizza all the time,” she said.