Servin’ up serveries

By Garrett Pirretti     10/8/24 10:41pm

From a 20th century central kitchen to today’s serveries, you can count on Rice for one thing: running out of plates. 

Before the dawn of the serveries, food was prepared at one big central kitchen and then trucked to smaller kitchens near the colleges. Complaints about the meal quality and payment structure persisted. A September 1993 Thresher editorial said that “meal plans offered to students are poorly structured, requiring payment of a base cost in addition to costs per meal.” 

A committee was formed to investigate introducing serveries with “[four] faculty members, two staff members, and two undergraduates,” according to an August 1998 issue of the Thresher. The overall response: negative. In a public survey, an estimated 70 out of 120 students critiqued the plan. 

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Then-Will Rice College magister Dale Sawyer said that the final decision about whether to add serveries would be up to the administration, though students would be consulted. 

“There will be an earnest attempt to solicit student opinion [about the proposed facility],” Sawyer said. 

Conversations with students yielded varied reactions. 

“Are you smoking architectural crack?” an unnamed undergraduate said in response to seeing the North Servery plan.  

Brian O’Malley ’01 said he was worried about the loss of college identity. 

“It’d be just like one cafeteria with three dining rooms, and who’s to say some people won’t just hop rooms?” O’Malley said.

In December 2000 Rebecca Lee Scheiner, the incoming assistant director for food operations, oversaw the construction of two “super-kitchens,” now called serveries, for Wiess and Hanszen Colleges, then Jones, Brown and Martel Colleges. 

“Basically, [my job is] to keep you guys interested in having a good time and enjoying your meals,” Scheiner said. 

 Once Wiess’s new building and Martel were finished with construction, the plan was to start building the new serveries. 

After opening, the Hanszen/Wiess servery, eventually renamed South servery, drew crowds. Housing and Dining reported in September 2001 that Hanszen/Wiess  servery served twice as many people as any other servery. 

Sarah Tuuri ‘04 said she didn’t like that it was harder to find Hanszenites to eat with, as the servery was open to students from other colleges.

“I get very upset because they are all from other colleges, and I want to be around people from Hanzsen,” Tuuri said. 

Worries about long lines and an erosion of college culture at mealtime led to the proposal of one dinner a week for only Hanszenites. 

Later on, the Hanszen/Wiess servery won three stars out of four from a November 2002 Wall Street Journal critique. Out of 20 schools surveyed, Rice was only behind Yale in food quality.

Head chef of the Hanszen/Wiess kitchen, Roger Elkhouri, said he was proud of the kitchen’s rating. 

“The only reason Yale received four stars is because they have leather seats and serve organic stuff,” Elkhouri said. “Everybody has worse features dealing with their food. Ours was just because we ran out of trays, so the trays that came out of the dish machines were wet.”

Three different payment plans were suggested in February 2000. Previously, students paid per item and the total was tallied at checkout. Under Plan 1, all on-campus students paid per-semester and dining was all-inclusive, with the option of adding Owl Bucks, the predecessor to Tetra. 

Bryan Hassin ‘01 and Mark Lewis ‘01 said they acknowledged criticism of Plan 1, but believed it was a fair system.

“Most of the concerns I have heard have been from students who don’t eat a lot. I eat a lot and I like all-you-can-eat, but I can see that it’s not ideal for someone benefiting from the [existing plan],” Hassin said. 

“The plan is utilitarian in that it is the greatest good for the greatest number. There will be objections with any proposal, but it is a good system,” Lewis said.

Interestingly , the idea for a Subway and convenience store were also proposed as components of Meal Plan 1.

After the success of the Wiess/Hanszen servery, Housing and Dining now runs five serveries across campus. 

Kyle Hardwick, a chef with H&D since 1999, said that South servery has changed the most compared to others. 

“When I first joined Housing & Dining, serveries didn’t exist,” Hardwick wrote in an email to the Thresher. “South and North were the pioneers, opening in the early 2000s. South has seen the most changes, with the serving lines relocated, the addition of a wood stone pizza oven, a wok station, and updated wood paneling. North has remained relatively unchanged, apart from the wok station being added a few years back. West and Seibel opened in 2009 and 2010, respectively.”

Will Rice sophomore Adah Spring said she was excited to see the food at Seibel Servery’s new kosher station.

“I know they changed it from the stir fry line to kosher, so I’m wondering what they are going to do with that,” Spring said.  

In a November 2002 Thresher article, H&D Director Mark Ditman said that their purpose goes beyond cooking the most delicious food. 

“The intention wasn’t to be the most trendy or to be the highest-rated food service in the country but rather to put out a satisfactory product and to support the mission of the colleges… [and] do it in a way that it didn’t become financially prohibitive to a lot of students coming here,” Ditman said. 

Shruti Patankar contributed reporting. 

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