On March 5, students lined up outside the dining hall in Tae Wul Gwan (N13) to be the first ones to try out foodservice company IB Food’s new restaurant Grillcook.Grillcook offers a more western set of menus than its predecessor, foodservice company CJ Freshway’s The Place, with food options ranging from steaks to various kinds of pilafs and spaghetti. In mid-February, the KAIST General Affairs Team announced that Grillcook would be the successor to The Place, which had served the school for three years before theyrequested a withdrawal of their operation from KAIST last November.

In fact, this was not the first time that the foodservice company made such a request. CJ had already filed for a termination of their three-year contract a couple of times in the past few years on the grounds that they may not be able to recuperate the huge investment made when they entered KAIST years ago. In order to do so, CJ had to stay much longer than the three years stated on the contract. However, KAIST, being a government-funded school, did not and still does not favor big corporations such as CJ Freshway so the school did not welcome the idea of offering them a second contract, especially with The Place’s low customer satisfaction scores. Not only that, The Place faced stiff competition from other in-campus counterparts such as Lotteria,Meilu, and Dongwon Foods.