Students worry about servery equality

By Ruby Gee     10/21/10 7:00pm

Students from the south colleges have been expressing their discontent with higher meal plan costs and inconsistent quality between serveries.Wiess College freshman Monica Zatarain said that she did not think the food from South Servery was comparable to that from West Servery.

"There needs to be equality of food quality throughout the college serveries." Zatarain said.

Students from Will Rice College and Lovett College have attributed the perceived discrepancies between the food they are served and the food prepared for other colleges to the fact that they do not get their food prepared on site. Rather, food is either transported from West Servery or purchased from off-campus businesses. Lovett junior Xavier Oberti said the food at Lovett was understandably unsatisfying compared to the other serveries' food.

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"I feel like it's as good as it could be getting carted here," Oberti said. "It's bad [though] when you consider that we're paying $15,000 for this food and warrants the protest that happened."

Director of Residential Dining David McDonald said that the rising costs of the on-campus meal plan, whose exact cost is $3,870 a year, are due to the rising costs of food and labor. He equated the increasing cost of meal plans to rising tuition costs: neither can come down due to the reality of economics.

"There's been no change to the OC-5 plan and only a 3 percent increase in the 19-meals-a-week plan, [which is] an annual increase based on a model," McDonald said.

According to McDonald, the consumer price index - which measures the changes over time in the price levels of consumer goods and services - for food has gone up 20 percent in the last six years alone. In response to the student complaints about food quality across the campus, McDonald said he thought that because the chefs from each servery buy from the same vendors, the food at each servery should be of equal quality - though individual chefs do make their own choices on how to use those ingredients.

"We're not a franchise like McDonald's where [the servery staff] must follow the same recipe," McDonald said. "We give them the freedom of choice, relying on their culinary style."

A group of students from Lovett and Will Rice demonstrated their frustration with the servery situation earlier this semester when Will Rice Vice President John Socha organized a protest by listserv. Socha estimated that 100 students participated by eating at Baker Servery.

"It was a message to Housing and Dining, who has been really responsive," Socha, a junior, said. "They were able to satisfy our every desire completely."

In response to the protest, H&D has held meetings to address the student concerns about food quality. According to Socha, sushi and carved steak have also been served in an effort to improve the quality of their servery food.

Baker Kitchen Managing Chef Terry Savoy said that while she welcomes students from all colleges to try her food, the effects of the protest that day were highly visible.

"The line was out the door, Savoy said. "It was quite obvious and of course we felt it."

Savoy said that besides the fluctuation of students eating at Baker, the servery has been operating smoothly.

"My numbers are so inconsistent [since] I might have 100 extra people one night or just 10 extra people," Savoy said. "This shows in the food sometimes, since we might overproduce or underproduce."

Baker sophomore Jarrod Boyd said that he sees a lot of students from Lovett and Will Rice coming to eat at the Baker Servery in general.

"It's a little annoying having other people crowding our servery, but I can understand why they do it," Boyd said.

North Servery Executive Chef Edward Castillo has worked at various serveries on campus since 2001 and said that in regard to the protest at the Baker Servery, student attitudes have always been similar. He compared the new serveries on campus to new restaurants, predicting a similar flood of students at East Servery, which will be open by January.

"What happens is that people get impatient and want the convenience," Castillo said. "They want it right away.

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