Our world is slowly inching closer to normal as the vaccine rollout around the United States moves along.

Penn State has already announced that it will host in-person graduation at Beaver Stadium, a freshmen-only Blue-White Game final spring football practice, and in-person classes in the fall. The next step Penn State should take to get back to normal is bringing back its late-night menus across the dining halls.

Penn State’s late-night menu, in my opinion, was a hidden gem last year. If you needed to skip dinner because of a busy day, there were always scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal, and more comfort food waiting for you for three hours starting at 8 p.m. There are few things at Penn State that are better than that.

Thankfully, Penn State has phased back most of its dining options for students. Students can now go to the dining halls and not need to be stuck to limited options and hours. Still, Penn State would make students’ lives much better if it brought late-night back.

Despite most classes still being conducted via Zoom, most students are now back on their full schedules and are busier than ever. Although most of Penn State’s dining halls serve dinner until 8 p.m., many students are still forced to skip dinner due to having busy schedules.

The only place on campus that currently serves “late-night” (read: chicken parm and buffalo chicken subs) is Market Pollock, but even that closes at 9:50 p.m. — not the normal 11 p.m. of late-night in the past.

On the other hand, it may not be easy for Penn State to snap its fingers and extend its dining hall hours to 11 p.m. The coronavirus pandemic has brought on unprecedented challenges for Penn State Dining, such as the low supply of student workers, which has led to rumors of some dining halls being short-staffed. Employees also need to follow social distancing procedures in the dining halls with plenty of sanitation and cleaning.

Even if Penn State’s dining halls can’t extend its hours to 11 p.m., it would be awesome if the late-night menu was served during the normal hours of the day at least once a week. Half of the beauty of the late-night menu was the food itself. Comfort meals such as meatball parmesan, chicken parmesan, and buffalo chicken gyros would be absolutely great for lunch and even dinner.

At the very least, let’s hope that the late-night menu comes back next year when things are (hopefully) normal. Penn State, if you’re reading this, give late-night a shot again!