What are a few good and bad aspects about being on the meal plan right now?

- One of the best aspects about being on the meal plan is you know you have a set price for buying food. Enormous food variety is offered on the meal plan. In addition, the meal plan offers 24-hour service at Snelling.

- Today’s student is vastly different from that of 20 years ago. Students are more serious and conscious of studying and reading. Another thing we’re doing is we’re trying to put soft seating in all of the dining commons. I want students to see this as a meal-plan student center.

- We do feed 30,000 meals every day, and we try to please every customer. But, every once in a while, we burn a piece of toast. We want all the food to be satisfactory for our customers. Any time that a customer gets something that is not right, they should immediately ask for the manager on duty to make it right.

Not long ago, Oglethorpe House received a poor Health Department Inspection score. Have you made progress in fixing this problem?

- Immediate action was taken in response. We gave our employees additional training. One of the “biggest” problems was a carton of milk that was sitting out on the counter. The problem with the milk was the health inspector looked at the sell date. While this may be fine in your home to use past the sell date, this is not fine in an establishment. It must be used by the sell date.

- We take health issues here very seriously. We are inspected more than any other restaurant in town. Our own staff is trained for food safety. Georgia requires only one manager to be serve-safe certified, and we require all of our management team to be.

What kind of customer concerns have recently been brought to your attention?

- Well, I think the two highest comments that I get from customers are cereal selection and music variety. On the cereal, we do a cereal survey each year to get the top cereals. It’s impossible to offer all the cereals that are offered in the grocery store because there are so many. With music, it’s hard to cater to all the customers tastes and choices in music because everyone is different.

- Students are more nutritionally minded now than in the past. Typically, we try to meet the special dietary needs.

Have you considered implementing a wider variety of meal-plan payment options?

- You have to understand when you are implementing this program, you are making the customer pay more for less services. Currently we are providing the maximum services and maximum variety at the lowest possible prices. I would not consider this new type of program. It has to do with how the access system works.

I’ve noticed that over the past two or three years, the price has increased $100 or $200. What is the cause of this?

- Typically the meal plan goes up a bit each year. Food services is an auxiliary service on the campus, meaning it receives no state or federal funds to operate. Our workers’ salaries are increasing, food price is increasing and we have to pass quality on to our customers. Gas and corn prices are increasing and this affects the surrounding economy.

- Jordan Tate