Food for Thought
This article describes the changes and upgrades to University Dining Services. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Askew, Susan. "Food for Thought," ECU Report, December 1994, Volume 25, No. 4.
University Dining Services is enjoying rave reviews. Its patrons, a campus community of 18,000 students and 3,500 faculty and staff, appreciate the good food, convenience and value offered by what is fast becoming one of the premiere food service programs around -- by anybody's standards.
From early morning until late at night in one of seven campus locations, there is something for everyone -- from all-you-can-eat buffets in Mendenhall and in the new Todd Dining Hall, to table service at Sweetheart's in Todd, to four snack bars with grill shops, delicatessens and salad bars, Chinese stir fry, Mexican food, and grab-and-go items.
Depending on when you spent your student days at East Carolina, this may not be the dining services you remember.
Early campus dining was in what is now called the Old Cafeteria Building, one of the oldest buildings on campus. Students were served family-style at their tables until the late forties, when operations were converted to cafeteria-style service. Through the years the serving lines increased in number, as did dining rooms. Eventually, the Old Cafeteria Building housed North, South and East Cafeterias, all served by a single kitchen.
When Jones Hall was built on College Hill in 1958, it was equipped with a cafeteria, and later with the snack bar/lounge now called The Galley. Dining operations in the Old Cafeteria Building ended with the sixties, leaving Jones Cafeteria, and the Pamlico and Jones Hall snack bars as the only dining facilities on campus.The Pamlico closed in 1974 when the original snack bar in Mendenhall Student Center opened.
In 1987, Wright Place and the Croatan were being operated by ECU Student Stores. Jones Cafeteria and the Jones Hall and Mendenhall snack bars were operated by the Canteen Company, a food service contractor.
Frank Salamon came to campus that year as an employee of the Canteen Company.The Pennsylvania native had worked for several contractors in a variety of settings that included colleges and universities.
Al Matthews, vice chancellor for Student Life, appreciated Salamon's knowledge of the food service industry and shared his vision for the future of dining services at ECU.
In 1989 Matthews hired Salamon for the newly created university position of Director of University Dining Services. The two men formed a committee of representatives from student government, housing, athletics and business affairs, and formulated a 10-year plan that would turn ECU's food service program into one rivaled by few in the nation.
Matthews considers dining services to be a key ingredient in the recipe for well-rounded student life.
"I tell parents that if students are healthy -- if they're eating well, getting a good night's sleep and have some standard program of exercise -- they'll do better in the classroom. It's not a substitute for turning your papers in on time, doing your homework and participating in class. But given those, they'll do better in class, they'll do better in interpersonal relationships and they'll feel better about themselves," he said.
"A lot of people will tell you that students are always going to complain about food service, that it's a given; but I don't believe that," Matthews said. "I believe that when students have a quality food service that is meeting their needs, they will appreciate it and use it."
The bottom line in running any successful food service, according to Salamon, is in understanding the nature and needs of your primary customers; in his case, the students.
"Today's students want options," Salamon said. "They want to eat a la carte. They want to eat when they want to eat.Grazing is the big thing now. Most students don't eat at eight, noon and five anymore.They eat when they're hungry or when they have time."
That especially holds true during the five-hour lunch period between late morning and early afternoon. That's when the cash operations -- Wright Place, Croatan, The Spot and The Galley -- do their biggest business, serving nearly 8,000 people per day. In a typical day, these four facilities will serve 1,280 slices of pizza and 1,050 burgers.
The dining halls, Mendenhall and Todd, experience their peak business from late afternoon to early evening when they serve a combined 3,400 meals each night.
Salamon said University Dining Services is not interested in providing "the cheapest food service in Greenville. We're trying to provide a consistent, day in and day out, attractive, high quality food service program at the most reasonable cost that we can.And we've been very successful," he said.
In addition to untold thousands of cash-paying customers, Salamon reports that nearly 9,000 people are participating in one of three meal plans offered, with 3,000 students on traditional meal plans and 6,000 on declining balance plans.
Students using meal plans are provided with photo ID cards with their account information encoded on a magnetic strip. The cards allow them to purchase food at all campus locations, and to check their available meal balance and declining funds at any cashier station.
At $825 per semester, the 14 Meals Per Week Plus plan is the most economical and the most popular. It provides 14 meals per week plus a $100 declining balance account and is designed for students who eat most of their meals on campus.
The 9 Meals Per Week Plus plan, at $720 per semester, provides nine meals each week plus a $100 declining balance account. This plan is designed for students who leave campus Friday afternoon and don't return until Sunday evening.
The Declining Balance Plan is a prepaid debit account that is used as cash in any of the campus's dining facilities. Students can open a Declining Balance account with a minimum deposit of $200 and make redeposits to their accounts of $50 or more as their balance depletes.
While Salamon is responsible for the overall operation of University Dining Services, a food service contractor handles the day-to-day operations and programming. ARAMARK (formerly ARA Services) of Philadelphia has provided food service for ECU since August 1990 and is in the fifth and final year of its contract.
ARAMARK's director of marketing for ECU is David Bailey '91. Bailey said dining services is the largest employer on campus, with ECU students comprising 40 percent of its workforce.In addition, ARAMARK has provided career opportunities for some of those students after graduation.
"ARAMARK currently has nine ECU grads, including me, on staff here in management positions," Bailey said, "and employs a number of ECU alumni who have moved on to other university food service accounts."
The list includes: Allison Austin '90, David Bailey '91, Jennifer Behr '93, Karen McKeithan '93, Bob Phillips '91, Layne Godbold Rogerson '91, Duane Russell '94, Tony Sloan '94, Carmen Tarrentino '93 and John Tate '92.
Salamon said that in the 1994-95 academic year, University Dining Services will do $7 million in food service business; five years from now, at the completion of the 10-year plan, it will do $12-13 million a year in food service business; and that "a significant portion of those revenues stay on this campus and are used to build new facilities and renovate existing ones."
Salamon's eyes light up when he talks about his job at East Carolina University.
"Being on the administrative end has given me a different perspective on the food business," he said. "I'm still involved intimately with the food service business on campus. But now I'm involved in 'let's build a new dining hall.Let's sketch it out on paper and see how it's going to work.'And that has been exhilarating for me personally."
Particulary exciting for Salamon are his plans for further renovations to Wright Place and the construction of another dining hall. Both projects are consistent with the university's facilities master plan and will significantly change the way the campus looks in those areas.
Renovations to Wright Place will include building a glass-walled solarium that will seat 100 additional people, a tree-covered bosque just ouside the solarium for outdoor table dining, and a trellis extending from the front of the solarium to provide still more space outside.
With the existing street and curbing eliminated, a three-foot stepdown from the bosque and trellis areas will put you on the brick-paved Wright Plaza, to be fully landscaped and surrounded by a seatwall. Modifications to the food court inside Wright Place will enhance the facility's offerings and allow for faster service.
Pending approval in the next session of the N.C. General Assembly, the university will build a brand new dining facility between Clement and Fletcher residence halls on the site of the old amphitheater. It will seat 600 people in terraced dining areas overlooking downtown Greenville. Featuring an all-you-can-eat buffet, the new facility will draw its customers primarily from the five highrise residence halls on the west end of campus.
The exterior of the building will serve to tie the nearby residence hall community together with a brick colonnade. A semi-circular green area connecting Clement and Fletcher Halls will provide a recreational area with outdoor seating.
