Located in the basement of Simard Hall, Café Alt opened in October 2008 as a green and fair-trade student café with a deli sandwich bar, as well as a variety of fair trade coffees, after being abandoned by Chartwells, the university's food provider, in 2007. Café Alt's basement is also home to three smaller student associations; GAIA, the Geography students' association, AÉDF (Association des Étudiants du Département de français), and the Students' Association of the Faculty of Arts, which manages event booking in the space.
