Campus pizza is getting a makeover.

Improvements are in the works for the PAD dining service, including new pizza ovens and an online ordering service in an effort to improve overall efficiency.

Zia Ahmed, senior director of dining services, said student interest in the PAD is high, but there is still progress to be made.

“The PAD is a very popular operation among our students and I constantly get good feedback, but they are also continuously asking us to enhance the efficiency and services of PAD to see if we can get faster delivery time and better quality,” Ahmed said. “This is an area we’ve been looking at for about a year now to find ways to improve efficiency.”

The purchase of new ovens serves not only as a replacement for the current equipment, but also to enhance quality and efficiency with the new Turbochef models.

Dining services has been working with student life IT to implement two new digital changes for the PAD.

One initiative has been to improve the ordering system when students have multiple transactions to make with the same BuckID. Employees must enter the card’s code each time, often causing mistakes. 

Students might also be able to order online.

Last year, the PAD moved from Drake Union to the Lane Avenue Residence Hall. Ahmed said traffic flow is better and there is more space in the new location. 

The PAD is the only campus dining service that can deliver to residence halls, but frequent long delivery waits leave some students unsatisfied.

Thomas Clark, a second-year in electrical engineering, expressed his frustration with the service.

“I don’t know exactly how they work, but I’m sure they could definitely clean up their act by answering the phone more frequently and getting more people on that. I understand the delivery part, but it’s kind of absurd that it’s a two-hour wait,” Clark said. “You literally have to anticipate being hungry for two hours when you call.”

Despite these issues, Michael Lehmann, a second-year in business, said he hopes the new changes to the PAD will result in a more positive experience.

“I guess online ordering would help because you wouldn’t have to sit on the phone. Assuming it would take an hour or however long, you could just do it beforehand,” Lehmann said.

Ahmed said in the spring that he hopes to see all of the changes completed and running by the first day of Fall Semester.