UC Riverside students will have a new dining spot to satisfy late-night cravings with NOODS: The Noodle Bar.

The restaurant will open to the public April 1 at the Market at Glen Mor at the dining station formally occupied by the Sizzle burger and sandwich counter. It features an assortment of noodles and sauces in different Asian styles.

Inside UCR Author - Imran Ghori

Customers can customize their bowls with options including ramen, udon, and rice noodles; sauces such as goachujang, spicy ramen, black bean, and yellow curry; and ground pork, ground halal chicken, and ground tofu as a protein choice. They can top it off at a garnish station that includes crunchy onions, furikake, and garlic chili oil.

Executive Chef Lannette Dickerson said the choices incorporate Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Filipino flavors and ingredients.

“It was important for us to represent as much of Asia as we could,” Dickerson said.

The culinary team developed a dozen recipes and invited students and staff to try them out, choosing the six most popular for NOODS. The restaurant will rotate out different options every 10 weeks to provide diners with variety, Dickerson said.

Both the menu and the hours were developed based on students’ responses to surveys, where they sought “something portable and something new” that was open at night, said Cedric Martin, director of residential dining.

“We wanted to have a component that was student-driven, based on their ideas, and execute it at one of our main locations,” he said.

On a trial basis, NOODS will only be open 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. Its hours could expand in the fall quarter depending on demand, Martin said. 

The Market at Glen Mor is centrally located near student housing buildings and already gets a regular evening crowd for the Starbucks café and mini grocery inside.

“They’re used to this being a late-night spot,” Martin said.

During a run-through in late March where Dining Services staff tried out the menu, the new counter was already catching the attention of some students.

“It looks very good,” said Monica Wu, a doctoral student in economics who lives in student housing nearby and was curious to sample the noodles. “I’m excited. I’m around here very often.”