Celeris, the Quad convenience store, will close on May 28. The store, which was operated by Harvard University Dining Services, was unable to break even in its three years in Cabot’s basement.

After Cabot students’ semester-long effort to save the Quad’s only convenience store, Celeris will close its doors for good on May 28, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) announced last week.

HUDS Executive Director Ted A. Mayer said Celeris had faced heavy losses—averaging around $25,000 per year—since its inception in 2001.

Despite a brief period of gain in February 2004, Mayer wrote in an e-mail that Celeris suffered from “insufficient foot traffic,” only 65-70 customers a night.

Mayer said that as a last resort HUDS turned advertising and promotions over to students.

“We just wanted to break even for the last two months students were involved,” he said.

But Celeris has failed to make even the minimum amount needed to keep shelves replenished with Easy Mac, Ben & Jerry’s, soda, and other popular items.

“[Celeris] has never broken even, which it was designed to do,” said Cabot House Co-Master Jay M. Harris.

Harris said that although a number of students had made a “Herculean effort” to save Celeris, following a warning from HUDS in December, the store would close.

Quad residents including Dina B. Mishra ’06 participated in a final attempt to spare Celeris, supplementing HUDS advertisements by stuffing flyers in students’ mailboxes, offering cans of Red Bull as an inducement to visit Celeris, and even raffling a bicycle.

HUDS, with the aid of Mishra and her student Committee, also advertised in the Quad shuttles.

But despite the student consultation, Mishra said that the ads, which were put up by HUDS, contained spelling mistakes and mistakenly identified E entryway in Cabot House as “Entrance E.”

“These were things that HUDS could not have known, but that students certainly picked up on,” she said.

While Mishra said she understood HUDS’ predicament in funding Celeris, she said that saving the store was not a “top priority” for HUDS.

“The people who I worked with were very receptive, but I did sometimes feel like things took a long time to mobilize,” she said.

Despite the effort, many Quad residents felt that the ad campaign to save Celeris had failed.