After hours of lectures, club meetings or dance parties in fraternity basements, students often need a way to refuel. Rather than order from Domino’s or settle for whatever is left in the Choates vending machines, students tend to head to grab a bite in one familiar place: Late Night at the Class of 1953 Commons, colloquially known as Foco.
Behind your quesadilla or bowl of cereal is a team of employees making the midnight magic happen. Late Night employees have to work unusual hours — the dining option is open from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., seven days a week — and sometimes deal with rowdy crowds. Despite these challenges, the late shift also gives dining employees a chance to interact with students in a different environment, Late Night supervisor Haishan Li said. Li finds that building personal connections with students — made easier by the slower evening hours — is the most rewarding part of her job.
“During the daytime, students are kind of in a rush,” she said. “… At Late Night, they’re more relaxed because they have time. … They tend to have a little more conversation with us, and that’s what’s most important for me — to know your customer and build a relationship with them.”
Craig Hill — who works as the lead at the front register during Late Night — also said he enjoys getting the chance to “interact with young people” while working at Late Night.
“[Students] are a lot of fun,” he said. “On the slower nights, I’m able to talk more with the kids and interact with them and just ask them questions about what’s going on. They ask me questions, too. It’s not one-sided, which is really nice.”
Late Night supervisor Brett Wright — who transitioned from his position at Collis Cafe, where he worked for 10 years, in the fall of 2024 — explained that the dining option provides students with a “chance to relax” without thinking about the events of their day. He said the “energy” of the night shift is different from the busyness of day shifts at Collis.
“[Students] might not necessarily want to be thinking about the 100 pages they’re going to be reading over the next two days,” Wright said. “They get to chill with their friends and enjoy their evenings before going to bed.”
In addition to building community with students, many Late Night workers value the chance to work non-traditional hours. Wright explained that he chose to switch to Late Night primarily for scheduling purposes.
“I stayed up late a lot when I was younger, so it made sense to work there,” he said.
Li also said she prefers the night shift.
“Every person has a different sleep schedule,” she said. “I feel like it’s much easier for me to do later in the day than earlier.”
But the shift doesn’t end when the kitchen officially closes at 1:30 a.m. According to Wright, the work isn’t done until everything is cleaned up and checked by employees.
“We usually finish up by about 2:30 a.m., and then I go around checking every station, making sure everything’s turned off and all the doors are locked,” Wright said. “It’s a bit of a late-night routine.”
According to Hill, Dartmouth Dining also provides a “differential,” or a pay bump, for night shifts. Hill said the pay increase was one motivator for his choice to work at Late Night.
Hill’s path to working at the front register in particular was more unconventional, though. According to Hill, he was originally hired to work as a cook but had an accident last year that caused “soft tissue damage” to his left hand.
“I wound up working at the register because I was wearing a cast,” he explained. “… [After this,] when the lead position opened up, I applied for it, and they gave it to me.”
While several employees pointed to the calmer atmosphere during late night, the atmosphere varies based on the day, according to Li. As a guest experience manager at Foco, Li has access to data tracking how many customers come in to eat at Late Night, and said crowd sizes differ between “on-nights,” or Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and “off-nights,” the remaining nights of the week.
On “on-nights,” many students use late night to meet up with friends after a night out or to grab a snack on their walk home from a Greek house. In contrast, quieter nights may provide students with a space to “decompress,” Hill said.
“It gives them [students] the opportunity to blow off steam, and we see quite a bit of that, especially later on [in the term], during midterms or finals,” Hill said.
While many students come to grab food and take it to-go, Hill added that it’s not unusual to see students lingering for an extended time.
“[Late Night] gives people who during the daylight hours run with their own cliques the opportunity to interact with people that they normally wouldn’t,” Hill said. “I think that’s a very good part of it.”
This spirit of camaraderie extends to the Late Night staff, too. Every night, employees gather before service begins to discuss how the evening will unfold, Wright said.
According to Wright, “We see how all of our employees feel about where they want to work that night. We try to keep it even and rotate people onto different stations so they get a feel for everything.”
This team spirit, especially among student workers, is a defining aspect of Late Night. While the Late Night staff primarily consists of full-time employees like Wright and Li, students also play an essential role in making Late Night operations successful, according to Li.
“[Student workers are] a big part of Late Night,” Li said. “We have at least two students working every two hours. Students are really a special part of the operation.”
Whether students are craving chicken tenders or just want to spend some time with their friends, Foco Late Night provides a space for students to hit pause on a busy term, relax and bond with new friends. For students and staff alike, Late Night is a community built on genuine connection.
“In the daytime, students are busy and employees are busy, but at night, we see opportunity for real conversations,” Li said. “That’s the beauty of working with Late Night.”
