{"id":7346,"date":"2026-02-16T14:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T20:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/?p=7346"},"modified":"2026-07-21T19:58:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:58:00","slug":"cereal-eating-event-causes-a-stir-in-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/?p=7346","title":{"rendered":"Cereal-Eating Event Causes a Stir in Crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-radius: 12px;\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/7dFwQxx5Rggmoy014kkWui?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-testid=\"embed-iframe\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diners at Crossroads were met with quite the bizarre sight on Feb. 2 as a group of around 30 people flooded into the cafeteria at 5 p.m., swiping their Cougar Cards and forming a single-file line in front of the cereal dispensers. The group then retreated to the long high-top tables, determined to eat every last Lucky Charm, Cocoa Puff, and Cheerio.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The crowd was organized by senior Caleb Kreuger. In the weeks before, he had distributed flyers advertising, \u201ceat all of the cereal in the cafeteria\u201d with a QR code to a <a href=\"https:\/\/groupme.com\/join_group\/112312077\/qGia5bV1\">GroupMe<\/a> for the event. Once the word had spread, Kreuger coordinated a day and time for everyone to come together to fulfill his vision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Krueger said that he got the idea from his older brother, who always wanted to eat all of the cereal in the cafeteria. In the market for a senior prank, Kreuger took the opportunity to live out his brother\u2019s dream.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSomething I\u2019ve learned in my classes is if you\u2019re really passionate about something, that passion can sometimes rub off on other people. And when I was promoting this event, I was very excited about it,\u201d Kreuger said. \u201cIt\u2019s fun and it\u2019s college lore. This is something I\u2019ll be telling my kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7325\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7325\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7325 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_9898-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7325\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A table with cereal eaters on Feb. 2. (Nate Clayton)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The students gathering in the KCC lobby prior to the event shared similar sentiments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It seemed like a good community event and I do like eating cereal,&#8221; senior Nathan Goman said. \u201cSo it was a good excuse to do both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other students were most drawn in by the goofiness factor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe\u2019re using the caf resources as we\u2019re supposed to: by eating,&#8221; said junior Hannah Weber. &#8220;But it\u2019s a fun way to hang out with people, and it\u2019s very silly and goofy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ten minutes into the event, after the cereal dispensers were refilled once and quickly emptied again by the crowd, the cereal was removed from the cafeteria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThey probably were just trying to preserve it for other people, but I don\u2019t really think that\u2019s a good justification because plenty of us wanted to eat it,\u201d junior David Young said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t being wasteful, we were enjoying the cereal and eating it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank Budig, a general manager at Sodexo, gave the order to pull the cereal after being notified of the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI explained to him [Kreuger] that I really don\u2019t think it\u2019s a Christian thing to do while people are starving around the world, to see how much cereal we can eat,\u201d Budig said. Budig added that Sodexo donates around sixty meals to an Oak Park homeless shelter every week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though the event was shut down quickly, Budig said he would be open to working with students to coordinate a cereal-eating event with a different focus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think if we got together and kind of planned it out a little bit, I think we could make it where his event could be successful,\u201d Budig said. \u201cI thought, &#8216;What if we did something where it\u2019s how much cereal you can eat in a minute or thirty seconds?&#8217; And then maybe somehow combine it with something so good would come out of it, so that somehow we could donate to the needy through that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the cereal dispensers were pulled before all of the excess stock could be depleted, Budig said that the event did deplete the milk in the cafeteria. Budig brought more into the caf the following morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though the event was over within an hour of it beginning, Krueger considered the removal of the cereal dispensers a victory, declaring the event a success amid the crowd of cereal-eaters assembled in the cafeteria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kreuger said, \u201cI feel so proud of our community, because everybody showed up for a cause greater than themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diners at Crossroads were met with quite the bizarre sight on Feb. 2 as a group of around 30 people flooded into the cafeteria at 5 p.m., swiping their Cougar Cards and forming a single-file line in front of the cereal dispensers. The group then retreated to the long high-top tables, determined to eat every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":9608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concordia-news","category-life-culture","category-showcase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9609,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions\/9609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}