CHECKS PLEASE. Checkerboard design touches highlight the 50s diner motif in Binghamton U.’s Woods Diner, as does the 57 Chevy grill wall mount.

Once upon a time, the college convenience store existed in a spartan form as a convenient outlet for students to purchase items they needed for dorm life: toiletries, cleaning products, plus candy and gum.

That stuff still flies off the shelves, but it represents a much smaller part of the product mix these days, and the campus c-store is morphing into a much more comprehensive services provider. Not inconsequentially, it is also growing as a campus foodservice outlet as the minimal packaged sweets are joined by elaborate prepared foods designed either for immediate consumption or for later.

Through its annual Best in the Business Campus C-Store awards program, the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS) highlights the most innovative convenience retailing outlets in the nation. And they in turn provide a look at some of the emerging trends in the onsite c-store category.

On the following pages, we briefly profile the winners in the six awards categories…

• The Woods Diner at Binghamton University (Hybrid C-Store Award)
• Boiler Crossing/Boiler Junction at Purdue University (Caring for Your Retail Customers Award)
• Vista Market at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona (Innovations Award)
• Market at Global Village at Rochester Institute of Technology (New Store Design Award)
• Market at Munger at Stanford University (Marketing Your Retail Venues Award)
• Eagle's Nest at the College at Brockport (Updating Your Existing C-Store Award)

Judges for the 2011 competition included a team of students and campus c-store managers as well as Dean Wright, director of dining services at Brigham Young University; John Lawn, chief editor of Food Management magazine; and Jason Gilbert, who represented sponsor PepsiCo Foodservice.