The Commons Opens at Texas Tech

Texas Tech visitors and students are going to have a new place to eat this year.  The Commons has opened on 18th street and Boston Avenue.  The building has over 20,000 square feet of various food outlets including pizza, bagels, and a Mongolian style grill. This impressive new dining space is great for the increasing amount of students and visitors coming to the University.

Texas Tech students and visitors have an exciting new option for on-campus dining this year. Officials from Texas Tech University System today (Aug. 29) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the opening of The Commons by United Supermarkets located at 18th Street and Boston Avenue.

The stand-alone facility features 20,500 square feet of various food outlets including a Mongolian-style grill, pizzeria, mini-market and Einstein Bros. Bagels. The food court also features second-story seating overlooking the food area, complete with a hand-blown glass art installation by Studio Art’s Desire of Garland.

“We are excited to offer state-of-the art facilities like The Commons by United Supermarkets,” said Kent Hance, chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. “The need for more dining space reflects the impressive growth of our university, and I am confident we will be able to accommodate increasing number of students in the coming years.”

The Commons by United Supermarkets was named in recognition of the company’s $3 million donation to the Texas Tech University System that created two new student scholarship programs at Texas Tech University and supports the growing nursing program at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The gift was the second-largest financial contribution in the history of the family-owned grocery stores and benefited the system’s $1 billion capital campaign, Vision & Tradition: The Campaign for Texas Tech.

The bulk of the gift established the United Supermarkets Graduate Fellowship Endowment, which provides research support for graduate students at Texas Tech. A total of $2 million is being used to endow these fellowships, which are eligible for matching funds from the Texas Research Incentive Program.

“United Supermarkets is an outstanding corporate citizen,” Hance said. “Once again we thank them for doing more than their share to help us in all that we do in educating our students at Texas Tech.”
The Commons by United Supermarkets is located next to the new Boston Avenue Residence Hall and is now open to both commuters and students living on-campus. Groundbreaking for the project was 
held in May 2011.

For more information see Texas Tech.