DUE WEST — Students, faculty and alumni said Friday they lost more than a place to eat Thursday evening when Erskine College’s Moffatt Dining Hall burned.

The dining hall caught fire around 10 p.m. Thursday, suffering a damaged roof as well as smoke and water damage. School officials did not yet have an estimate of the cost of the damages or a timeline for restoration of the structure.

School officials quickly made meal arrangements Friday afternoon for several hundred summer camp attendees expected to begin arriving at the college next week.

Aramark, the company that provides meals at Moffatt, will serve meals to the campers at Dixie High School, which is about a block away from the Erskine dining hall.

Freshman will begin arriving at Erskine for the new school year on August 23, and parent orientation will begin in early August, said Rick Hendricks, interim director of marketing and public relations for the college.

The fire came at the end of Erskine summer classes, so few students were on campus. Those who remained on Friday ate their lunches at the nearby Due West Retirement Center.

Jeremy Heaton, a freshman from Greenville, said he was sad to see the dining hall go but expressed hope.

“We’ll get past it,” he said. “Erskine has had fires before, and we’ll move beyond this.”

Eating at the retirement center actually was a welcome change of pace, Heaton said.

“This was a different eating experience, because they serve you,” he said.

Students leaving messages on the college networking Web site Facebook were disturbed about the fire but made the usual jokes about cafeteria food, Heaton said.

At the retirement center, Mac and Ann Robinson, retired Erskine instructors, mourned the loss of the dining hall.

“We were planning to have our family reunion there later this month,” Mrs. Robinson said. “The food is really good.”

The Robinsons met at Erskine in the 1940s, when he was teaching physics and chemistry and she was teaching physical education and health. The couple spoke of enjoying many meals with family members and friends at the school.

Horace Alexander, who attended the school’s seminary, reminisced about the Sunday dinners at Moffatt.

“We always looked forward to fellowship at the dining hall,” Alexander said. “To see the people come there to eat from the surrounding community and beyond spoke volumes about how connected the school is to the community.”

Erskine President Randy Ruble said mementos from the dining hall, such as antique portraits, were salvageable. The furniture in the dining hall can be saved, but the carpet will need to be replaced, he said.

Offers of help came quickly starting Friday morning, when U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., called, Ruble said.

“I told him we needed federal money to help with better waterlines,” Ruble said. “Our water pressure is low, and if the fire departments had not brought in tankers, we would have been in bad, bad trouble.”