Sodexho Marriott, the service that currently holds the contract for on-campus dining, is having its contract reviewed this year before it can be extended. Toward this end, campus officials are examining input from students over the past few years and taking suggestions on what could make the service better. Having eaten in the Commons, Sage, Rathskellar, and various dining stations around campus for 14 months now, I have a few comments and complaints that I want to voice.
I’ll start with the good stuff. I’m sure most people on this campus will agree that the food Sodexho serves is some of the best available on college campuses. The dining halls certainly have their off days, but for the most part it’s good. Unfortunately, it sometimes lacks variety. Meals are served over and over, and frequently answers to student requests for certain foods are “it’s in the rotation, so it won’t be back for a week.”
In the Rathskellar, the menu is for the most part constant, and suffers from an extreme lack of diversity. Personally, I frequently find something that appeals to me there, but many of my peers complain that if you want something there that isn’t fried, you’re just plain out of luck.
My biggest suggestion for Sodexho is their prices, particularly for non-meal plan diners. I recently had a friend visit, and took her to the Commons for meals. I was shocked to lose several limbs getting her in each time. Dinner was approximately $9, and both lunch and breakfast were $7. This is not unreasonable for normal restaurants, but this is buffet style. When my parents visited for Parent’s Weekend my freshman year, I remember my father starting an argument with the cashier over it. “Seven dollars for lunch?!” he exclaimed. “Our breakfast menu is still out. You’re paying for two meals,” came the reply. Apparently leaving scrambled eggs out for a few more hours gives you the liberty to charge double. I’m surprised the rest of the food industry hasn’t discovered this yet.
A Sodexho meal plan costs a student approximately $20 a day, which anyone who is not on a meal plan will tell you is far above what they pay. It will, of course, be higher because you have to pay the people to prepare and serve the food, and clean your dishes afterwards. I’m not going to take a strong stance here that on-campus dining for students is far too expensive, but I will say that the numbers strike me as a bit high.
On the whole, I have been very pleased with Sodexho’s performance over the months that I’ve been here, and would recommend that their contract be renewed. Their service is OK now, but I think that these suggestions could make the service that much better.
