Who Knew?

Wisconsin Week publishes answers to questions of campus interest posed by faculty and staff. We can’t promise to answer all questions submitted, but we’ll try to pick those most likely to be of interest to the largest number of readers. Please send your queries to wisweek@news.wisc.edu.

Q: What’s going on with the Lakefront Café in the Union? Will it serve food again?

A: What’s going on is a complete $1.5 million to $2 million renovation of the café. Even though it hasn’t served food since last January, the space has been reservable for general purpose use, such as small musical acts or meetings. It is available for open use during the day.

The time frame looks like this: Design bids will be opened around October, and construction should start in January. Barring any delay in approval by the state (last year’s kitchen renovation encountered just such a delay, insiders say) the newly renovated space will be ready around May 2003, with an official grand opening the following fall.

The renovation itself won’t just be new curtains and silverware. Julie Vincent, Memorial Union’s assistant director for food and retail services, says the plan is to create a new “marketplace style” environment, where staff at multiple stations around the room prepare food right in front of you. Possibilities include pizza, stir fry, comfort foods like roast beef, and even items like a Monte Cristo sandwich.

In addition to all the structural differences, Vincent says, the space will be renamed.

Q: How many times has Lake Mendota not frozen completely? What needs to happen for the lake to be frozen officially?

A: Data manager Dave Balsiger in the limnology department says Lake Mendota has frozen every year since 1852.

To be officially frozen, the lake has to have solid ice cover from Picnic Point straight across to Maple Bluff, and stay that way.

So far this year, the guess is that this freeze happened only between Jan. 5-12. At the end of the season, the state climatologist and the Department of Limnology will collaborate and decide officially.

The three shortest years of ice coverage have occurred in the last four years (47 days of freeze in 1997-98, 53 in 1999-2000 and even less this year). University scientists cite a general trend of warming that has caused the lake to freeze about one week less every 100 years.