Every few weeks in our cafeteria, the first few tables are covered in tablecloths and reserved for students who wish to talk with our head chef, Jamie, and General Manager, Rita. I always passed these tables feeling pretty jealous, partially because the dinner they served always looked awesome and partially because I wanted to speak with Rita and Jamie about my dining experience at McDaniel.
Tonight, I finally got the chance! During the dinner, students in attendance both expressed their concern about certain elements of our dining hall while also praising the staff for certain meals that they’ve really enjoyed. There was a diversity of students with various priorities in the dining hall. For example, some students were concerned about seeing more meat during the weekends while others spoke up about wanting to see more fruit during breakfast hours.
I sat near Jamie, and he was open about his plans for our cafeteria as well as our suggestions about what we’d like to eat in the future. He said that some of his plans include adding more international foods because a lot of students have given a lot of positive feedback on nights when there are international options. For example, there was a night recently when a chef showed us different Indian recipes and we were able to sample things he made as well as various Indian spices. Jamie said we should be expecting more demonstrations like this next semester.
The quality of the food in general has improved greatly during my time at McDaniel, and I feel like this is partially due to their willingness to accept ideas from students and then use them. I can’t imagine the difficulty of serving a campus of hungry college students, but our staff seems to be doing a great job at keeping the individual in mind.
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