The Pirate Dining Room has always been short on seating during peak hours, but students noticed this year that open tables are even harder to find than in previous years.
The main cafeteria's weekday rush hour, between 5 and 6 p.m., sees a flood of students on their way to late classes, often making it impossible for people to find a place to eat.
Some students have been forced to alter their routines to cope with the overcrowding.
Junior Nick Ashton said he tries to avoid the cafeteria when he can.
"I try not to come at those hours," Ashton said. "I'll come at peak hours if I can't go anytime else, but I try to avoid it when I can."
Many students believe that the lack of seating this year in the cafeteria may be a result of the University community being larger now than it has been in decades, junior Andrew Linder said.
Linder said that he thinks the University administration admitted a large number of freshmen without considering how the school's facilities would accommodate them.
A few, mostly upperclassmen, say they do not see it as a problem.
"We should know better," junior Oliver Flores said. "We should be used to it by now."
Freshman Kenny Spudic said these problems are never going to go away.
"There are always going to be kids who take 10 seconds to eat and kids who take an hour, a seat will always open up sooner or later," Spudic said.
Spudic also said that he thinks a large contributing factor is students who fail to clean up after themselves when they finish eating, something which GDS employees expressed frustration over last year.
Spudic added that a dirty table discourages students from eating at it and is just as bad as an occupied one.
Joseph Grogan can be reached at joseph.grogan@student.shu.edu.
