Cafeteria Offers Pleasant Experience

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Photograph by Lee Hassler

Burgers and Dogs -- Food Service employees (from left) Alan Bingham, Diana Binkley, Karen Hall, Cody Wales, Sherry Brown, Nick Melvin, Robin Garcia, Rachel Bunting, Kim Griffin, and Esther Granderson serve hot dogs and hamburgers at pre-game tailgate party

  Every year thousands of young and not-so-young Americans begin their college career. This beginning, for many, marks their first time from home for a lengthy period of time.

 One factor in the effective transition of new students into the world away from home is the quality and wholesomeness of their diet. This necessity for proper care of the body and the resulting thinking improvements can be found in the University Center cafeteria and café.

   Though students living in the dorms are required to have a meal plan in order to ensure that they get the opportunity to be properly nourished, many students, faculty and staff who are not required to have a meal plan also take advantage of the outstanding services offered through the diligent and caring staff of our campus dining facilities.

   Warm smiles and friendly dispositions are first on the menu when a person enters into one of the Aramark food service facilities offered on campus. This heartening welcome is instrumental in helping the prospective diner to relax and enjoy a meal of well prepared entrees. However, most people outside of the cafeteria workers are not aware of how hard the people in the facility work in order to attain the pleasurable atmosphere and tasty food many customers take for granted.

   Although a few uneventful weeks may mean a standard 40-hour week to food services employees at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, oftentimes events that require catering such as football games or other special functions can bring the number of hours that some people must work to 75 hours or more per week. One of the reasons for the high number of hours worked is the limited number of employees able to be hired for such a relatively small operation.

   The University of Arkansas at Conway campus, for example, has roughly 100 employees working for food services compared to around 30 hired by the UAM branch of Aramark, according to Food Service Director Charles Kremers.  

  "Employees work very hard to give the best service and add a touch of home to each meal," Kremers said.

   Similarly, as with every well-oiled machine in the service industry, the dining facilities on campus strive to improve the service that they provide through comments and suggestions by students and faculty. Kremers said he expected comments and felt that comments should be given by customers so that the staff knew what they needed to do to improve their services.

   Though a comment box is usually available at the beginning of the semester, it was noted that it usually falls into the shadows as the semester gains speed. To help gain more input from patrons, a better location for the comment box will be experimented with as well as attempts to develop at least two food service meetings per semester with student, faculty and administration representatives on hand to give increased input. It has also been suggested that a comment bulletin board may be emplaced near the entrance so that students can post comments and suggestions.

   Changes made this semester alone in response to suggestions received include a Mexican food day and the increase in selections available at the salad and deli bars.

   "I like the Mexican food day and the Italian food days, and I like when they serve fish some Fridays," commented Sabrina Cole, a new student apartment resident.

   Similarly, although good business practices limit the number of selections available on weekends due to a lower head count of patrons, food service members are striving to improve the quality of the dishes served on these and other low head count days.

   In all, the good people of the Aramark food services on campus have performed and continue to perform a remarkable job bringing a touch of home to the erratic and stressful life of college. However, the staff can only improve service if they know what people believe that they need to work on to make their services the best possible.

   As Kremers said about the question he thinks should be broached to his patrons, "What do you want less of and what do you want more of?"

   So if you appreciate the hard work that the food service personnel provide, then by all means, let them know how you feel, just as you should bring up any reasonable ideas that could help them improve their service to the UAM campus.