To stay or go: has Rexburg expanded enough to accommodate the Mothers’ Weekend crowd?
Students are shouting glorious hallelujahs to the sky as Mothers’ Weekend approaches, because it means full fridges, free transportation and best of all—going out to eat and having mom pick up the tab.
With Rexburg’s growth over the past year as far as places to eat go, it might get a bit easier to stay in Rexburg rather than travel to Idaho Falls.
Winger’s Diner, for example, which opened last fall semester, has made several specific preparations for this year’s Mothers’ Weekend crowd.
“We’re putting together some specials that aren’t particularly on the menu,” Dan Pluid, one of the partners of Winger’s Diner and owner of the Rexburg location, said.
“We’re doing some upgraded food to give a little more variety,” Pluid said.
This includes hand-cut steaks and seafood and a chicken Parmesan on pasta, some things that are not normally offered on the menu at Winger’s.
Also, a different type of seafood will be reserved for Saturday night, when most families are projected to go out to eat.
On the whole, most of the new businesses have prepared specials for Mothers’ Weekend, although some of them haven’t figured out just how to go about it yet.
Cold Stone Creamery, a fairly new addition to Rexburg, has not decided yet what they are going to do for their Mothers’ Weekend special, but they are thinking about it.
Will this affect where students decide to go, since things are a bit closer to home?
Alison Lord, a senior from West Jordan, Utah, has had Mothers’ Weekend experiences with her mom for the past two years.
Lord and her mother have included both Rexburg and Idaho Falls in their previous Mothers’ Weekend festivities.
“The first year, on Saturday, we went to Idaho Falls to eat and go to the mall and did a couple of day activities on campus as well,” Lord said.
“The second year I don’t think we went out to Idaho Falls, but we went to the classes on campus and different things they offered and then we went out to eat and went to a movie.”
Lord has gotten her mission call and will leave shortly for Washington, D.C., after graduation in April.
“Whenever we’re going to be together, we’re going to be doing a lot of mission shopping, which means going to the mall in Idaho Falls,” Lord said.
Lord expressed her high hopes for a mall here in Rexburg in the future.
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