A perspective on The Hub

Lanre Badmus, Contributing Writer

Editor’s Note: Lanre Badmus is a junior at UNCW majoring in International Business with a minor in French. Lanre also works as a staff writer for The Seahawk. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Staff writer Lanre Badmus can be found on Twitter @LonnyBadmon. All suggestions and inquires may be sent via email to [email protected]

There’s a new dining option on UNC Wilmington’s campus and it is all the rage among students at the university. The Hub, which is located right in between Galloway and Graham-Hewlett residence halls, arrived on campus at the start of the semester last month as a replacement for Wag Out. It is also a late-night option seven days a week, but does it fill the shoes of the establishment it replaced?

For the most part it surpasses Wag Out. In fact, it’s nowhere even close to being close. The Hub has Mooyah, a fast-food chain based out of Texas that serves burgers, fries and shakes. Wag Out had none of the sort, not even fries to speak of, which was depressing. Wag Out was basically a tiny shack while The Hub is in a gorgeous two-story building. The Hub also houses a Starbucks and a POD express; meanwhile, Wag Out’s best options were a $5 personal pizza and mediocre, often bland soda or pink lemonade.

When it was here, Wag Out was easily the worst dining option on campus. It was always Wag’s embarrassingly less desirable spin-off and nothing more. With a painfully limited selection of food and a frustratingly consistent ability to lack your exact cravings irrespective of the time of day, I always tried to avoid it like the plague. I definitely was more than happy to hear that Wag Out was going to be closed and The Hub would take its place. Burgers and shakes over crummy chicken-less quesadillas any day of the week is a great option for me.

That being said, the one advantage that the now-defunct Wag Out has over its newer counterpart is the fact that students with unlimited meal swipes could use those at Wag Out. This was especially beneficial late in the semester when students would run out of Food Dollars or finish their Teal Meals earlier in the week like myself. Now, the only on-campus option we have for eating late at night on the weekends is not meal-swipe compatible. This honestly irks me just a little bit about twice a week when I head to The Hub after a workout. While the food is good, the dining experience at The Hub would only be enhanced if we were able to use meal swipes as opposed to always being forced to choose between using a teal meal or a bunch of food dollars. If you’re a chronic food dollar spender like me, you definitely understand my struggles.

I had honestly never heard of Mooyah before it came to campus, which maybe isn’t all that surprising considering it was only founded a decade ago. However, I am glad that I was introduced to it this school year. The burgers are all-natural and fresh and the milkshakes are delectable; I’m particularly a fan of the A1 Burger or Mooyah Cheeseburger with either a chocolate, cookies and cream or Reese’s shake. The fries aren’t at all bad, but they are sometimes better with a little bit of salt added. However, they could stand to at least put the shakes as part of a Teal Meal as opposed to having us purchase it separately with our Food Dollars. The Starbucks at The Hub is also miles better than the one at the campus bookstore, needless to say it comes with a plethora of more drink and food options to choose from. I haven’t bought anything from the POD express but I assume it isn’t significantly lower quality than the other campus PODs.

The current upperclassmen had to wait two long years to see The Hub arrive; as a current junior, I can say that it was well worth the wait.