Where’s the Fried Chicken?

Fried chicken. Spaghetti. Watermelon. All great foods that many people love. I believe that we should have a more diverse range of food in the cafeteria. If there were a larger variety to choose from, people would be spending more money. Therefore, the cafeteria would make more of a profit. Currently, the cafeteria has hamburgers, chicken breast sandwiches, jellos, puddings and chips. We also have a salad bar, from which people should be allowed to grab as many tomatoes or lettuce that they want; however, the amount of salad taken has been under close surveillance of the workers. There is also fruit, ice cream, beef sticks, pizza, soda, sub sandwiches, hot dogs, and soup. Although this may seem like a variety to some students, seeing the same items on display every day can be somewhat monotonous and become very boring.

Freshmen Jeraun Stevens, who is in complete favor of getting more food options on campus said, “I would like to see some seafood, Chinese food, Mexican food, spaghetti, and fried chicken on a daily basis.” He believes that this would also “bring more money into the cafeteria.”

Although many believe that it would be easy to include more of a food variety, there are financial aspects that should be looked at. Cafeteria cook, Bill, said, “If you look around, where do you see the space? The college was going to remodel the center aisle about a semester or two ago, but it would cost about $1,200 to do it. It would just cost too much money to remodel the place to have the space to include more food.

The increased amount of food varieties also means that there would be an increased amount of labor among the cafeteria workers. The cooks would spend more time cooking all the different food options and would more than likely not be paid more for it. Cafeteria worker Jen joked, “As being the one to cook the food, I don’t know if I would want more food options.” However, she the went on to say, “Maybe it would be a good idea. You never know if you would be able to make more money off of it. We do occasionally put new items out to see how it would work and sometimes it just does not work out.”

I, a strong advocate for an increased food selection, believe that the college cafeteria, contracted out to Chartwells, should start to add new foods to the table. However, I do not think that it would be possible to keep new foods coming out everyday, yet perhaps they could change the selections every other day. If they do not have the funds to add new foods, maybe they should take out some of the everyday food options that do not do so well and replace it with a diverse range of food.

Since the college is going to remodel parts of the cafeteria, suggested by Chartwell to the Marysville Site Council as a beautification project, then it should be willing to expand the size of the food serving area. If they increase the size of that serving area, then they would be able to include a bigger, more diverse range of food options, without complaining about how much money it is going to take.