Let's do lunch - but not at most of the old familiar
eateries along University Avenue.
 Several restaurants in the plaza areas just east of campus
recently closed their doors, including Reuben and Wong
Restaurant, Hucksters Grill, Don Cherry's and the briefly
opened Gibs.
 New ones opening in their places include Little Ditty's,
Fox and Pheasants, and K-W Rotisserie Chicken.
 Why are some restaurants folding and others rising, phoenix-
like, from their ashes?
 UW's director of food services, Mark Murdoch, keeps on eye
on his competition. He says that restaurants along
University Avenue "aren't failing at a higher rate than in
the general public. New restaurants have a 35 per cent
failure rate in the first year."
 But he says there are several reasons why restaurants near
the university are folding. "Rents are high and the owners
were expecting to ride on sales to UW faculty, staff and stu
dents. But they over-estimated the size of the market, so
they had no cash flow to renew their leases."
 Murdoch says that UW students are more professional and
don't drink as much as other students. Alcohol consumption
at the University of Guelph, a much smaller university, is
much higher - ten-fold, Murdoch claims. As well, UW co-op
students travel more than other university students so their
expectations are higher and their tastes are more
cosmopolitan, he adds.
 Some restaurants set up in the "heyday of the late 1980s"
heavily financed their ventures and had few of their own
assets. So when the recession hit and the money dried up
there was no one willing to bailout highly-leveraged owners.
 "Restaurants can't have a $4.95 pasta special every day.
Even if the place is full, you couldn't make money," Murdoch
says.
 Perhaps UW faculty, staff and students could have
contributed to some of the closings by bringing their custom
back to where it was twenty years ago, before the extensive
plaza-buliding started. Murdoch speculates that more UW
people are eating on campus in the last couple of years
because the food services department has improved its
services.
 Since the creation of the Davis Centre food fair, now the
flagship operation for food services, Murdoch has hired more
qualified cooks, set up a Taco Bell and a Pizza Pizza
franchises in South Campus Hall, and changed the residence
meal plan to include a balanced vegetarian meal plan and
several eating options. As well, UW food outlets have longer
hours, and UW people using the Value Plus card get a dis
count on their purchases.
 And the director expects that the new dining facilities in
the soon-to-be-built Student Centre will again improve food
choices at UW. "It's going to be the most dramatic in
Canada, possibly in North America."
 Still, not all of the restaurants close to UW have folded.
East Side Mario's is still dishing up the pasta, and Caravan
Cafe, Almadina Egyptian Cuisine and Second Cup are doing
well. They cater to a niche and have specialized menus that
are easy to serve, Murdoch points out.
 And other restaurants are opening. Little Ditty's opened in
mid August where Huckesters once was, and K-W Rotisserie
Chicken started serving last week in the building that was
formerly Reuben and Wong..
 Richard Madison and Paul Wilson, owners of Little Ditty's,
have been more than pleased with business so far. Madison
opted not to return to 3A math at UW this fall when the
chance to set up Little Ditty's with Wilson, formerly an
assistant golf pro, came up.
 "The business is dynamite," he says. "We've had way more
(customers) than we expected. We opened two weeks before
classes to work out the kinks. We've had to work them out on
the fly. We're making money."
 Why? "We're different. We're an eatery and a bar with no
cover charge. The food is good and inexpensive."
 Ed Moscoe of Chego Investment International, the landlord
of the plaza between UW and Phillip Street, says Madison and
Wilson's theory is that "UW students don't have a place to
go when school is over. After dinner what do they do?" At
Little Ditty's there's ongoing and continuous entertainment,
an idea that students in other university towns seem to
like, Moscoe adds.
 "The fellows seem to listen to what the market seems to be
saying," he says.
 Moscoe also expects that K-W Rotisserie Chicken will do
well. The owners have modeled their restaurant on two
successful chains that sell chicken- Swiss Chalet and Kenny
Rogers. The menu is limited to chicken. Customers add
salads, potatoes and gravy cafeteria-style. That should make
their overhead 30 to 45 per cent lower than Swiss Chalet's
because there are no waiters and waitresses, he says.
 "For restaurants to be successful in the recession, they
need to have excellent prices on their food, otherwise the
overhead will kill them," Moscoe maintains.