The campus eatery Linx, located at the Clark Center, left the Stanford Dining scene quietly in mid-December. It was replaced two weeks ago by Nexus Cafe, but undergraduate and graduate students alike expressed dissatisfaction with the new establishment because it does not accept Cardinal Dollars.

Nexus — which is open for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner — boasts a wide variety of food, including a salad bar and a taqueria, as well as Asian-style food, burgers, sandwiches and pasta.

The cafe, which features slightly lower prices than its predecessor, has been open since Jan. 8.

As of Dec. 15, Stanford Dining ceased to operate Linx and Peet’s Coffee and Tea at the Clark Center. Employees at Peet’s remain the same, but Nexus employees are new to Stanford.

Jerry Boone, the new cafe’s food service director, said that this takeover came about when Linx’s contract was up and Nexus Cafe placed a bid to overtake the services.

“It was just a matter of going in there and presenting a plan,” he said.

Rafi Taherian, executive director of Stanford Dining, said that when Clark Center management made a formal request for proposals, Stanford Dining decided not to take part in the process, choosing instead to focus its energy on other priorities.

“We’re very much focusing on developing the Old Union cafes now, making sure that Old Union will be a successful destination place,” Taherian said. “Once the renovation is complete, projected sometime in the spring, we will proceed with the planning and opening of the cafe.”

Boone added that since its opening, Nexus has been well-received and extremely busy.

“Literally about a thousand people per day go through there,” he said.

Boone estimated that most of his customers were the doctors and scientists who generally frequent the Clark Center, but that there was a great mix of students as well.

Despite Boone’s optimism, however, many students expressed frustration at the new cafe’s policy of not accepting Cardinal Dollars.

“My friends and I had a weekly tradition of going to Linx for over a year, and now that it doesn’t take points, we’ve had to find somewhere else to go,” said sophomore Molly Weiss. “Linx was the best place to eat on campus, so we’re really annoyed about this change.”

Boone said that when his bosses took over the cafe’s contract, the Cardinal Dollars issue was not a part of the discussion.

“It might have caught our people off-guard a little bit, since we’re just not set up to take it, accounting-wise,” he said.

Boone added that Nexus may accept Cardinal Dollars in the future.

“[Cardinal Dollars] will be looked at, and could become a viable solution,” he said. “It could be helpful to both parties, and I know that students would like it. We wanted to get the ball rolling and the doors open, and the next part of it will be to look at those other angles, whether it’s the tax issue or the Cardinal Dollars, and see what we can do about that.”

Taherian did not comment on how much of Linx’s business came from students using Cardinal Dollars, but did say that over the past two years students increasingly visited both the cafe and Peet’s Coffee at the Clark Center.

Many of Linx’s customers were graduate students who are not on a Stanford meal plan. At Nexus, these students can no longer get the seven percent discount they enjoyed at Linx simply by showing their student IDs.

First-year medical student Elsie Gyang, who was having lunch at Nexus, said she thought it was to the new cafe’s disadvantage not to offer a student discount and said she probably wouldn’t dine at the new eatery as a result.

Da Pan, a 2006 graduate, said that she didn’t notice anything different except for slower lines. However, she agreed with Gyang that the eatery would lose money by not giving a student discount.

“When I was an undergrad, I would use points exclusively here,” Pan said.

Opening up the Cardinal Dollars option to dining locations not managed by Stanford Dining would increase the revenue source of these locations, but Taherian said the process could reduce funding sources for other existing operations.

“In exchange, we have to cut services in operations where we’re currently managing,” he said.

Frequent Linx client Anish Mitra, a sophomore, said he was unhappy with the change, but understood that the decision made sense for the University.

“Stanford makes money from the lease, and the main patrons at the medical school get lower prices,” he said.