USU Dining Services: The future on on-campus dining
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Utah State University Dining Services were forced to shut down a number of popular dining locations around campus, including Shaw’s 88 Cafe in Huntsman Hall and the Skyroom located in the Taggart Student Center.
Dining Services is a staple on Logan campus. They serve food and beverages to hundreds of students per day, with options varying from retail dining, such as those found in the Hub at the Taggart Student Center, to buffet style dining like the Junction near Central Suites Student Housing.
Options such as the Skyroom, Luke’s Family Cafe on the Quad, Scotsman’s Corner in the Hub, and the Forum Café —formally the Quadside Café —and multiple stations in USU’s popular dining halls remain unavailable.
With normalcy beginning to return to Logan campus, many students were upset to find their favorite dining locations still closed at the start of fall semester.
While the Forum Cafe has since opened its doors with a limited menu after finishing renovations, the other locations remain temporarily closed for various reasons. The most common reason for the limited availability is staff shortages.
Alan Andersen, the executive director of Dining Services since 2007, has worked with on-campus dining since 1989. He explained the pandemic has also heavily impacted their dining locations.
Andersen said multiple factors of the pandemic have influenced their staff shortage, including wages and massive shutdowns in the food service industry.
“Every restaurant began to open at the same time,” Andersen said. “The ones that were able to offer more desirable pay were the first to become fully staffed. We used to be able to recruit 20 to 30 employees by offering $7.50 an hour.”
Dining Services has since raised its minimum wage to $10 an hour and offers increases to current employees every semester.
Andersen said recruiting also made the hiring process difficult.
Andersen said they tried hiring when Connections classes were meeting before school, sent out emails and held open interviews, all in hopes of becoming fully staffed.
In the past, Dining Services has seen upwards of 50% returning staff. However, because they had a reduced staff during the 2020-21 academic year, they only saw a fraction of the retention.
A former dining services employee who worked during the previous school year explained they didn’t return to dining service for several reasons.
Andersen said the open on-campus dining locations are back to normal volume.
“The start of the school year is always the busiest for us,” Andersen said. “This was probably the worst prepared we will ever be, and that was mostly due to COVID.”
Just before the start of the semester, Dining Services was faced with either fully opening but with lower quality products, or having limited availability.
They ultimately decided on the latter, resulting in a cut in services such as their “clutch” line of products, limited options in dining halls, and unavailability of locations such as Scotsman’s Corner.
Andersen did assure students they are almost back to 100% staffing, and students can expect to see full availability before the end of the semester.
Those interested in applying with Dining Services can email diningjobs@usu.edu.
Luke’s Family Cafe on the Quad was also temporarily closed, however, for reasons other than employee shortages.
Luke’s is part of what those in Dining Services call the “core four” —the four popular cafes located in central campus. This includes Shaw’s 88 Cafe, the Forum Cafe, Steeped and Luke’s.
Dining Services is in the process of remodeling the core four to provide more diverse dining, including more vegan and vegetarian options.
Steeped, located in the Life Science building, reopened this past summer, and now serves Starbucks Coffee.
Shaw’s 88 Cafe in Huntsman Hall is not expecting any major changes, having just reopened.
The Forum Cafe, located in the library, also received a makeover and recently reopened as well.
Luke’s is the final of the Core Four cafe’s to be restyled and is waiting on a few appliances before its anticipated reopening later this academic year. No official date has been set.
Aubrey Hampton, a junior at USU, is excited for the new dining options.
“I’d love to have more diverse food on campus,” Hampton said. “It’s nice to have more options than what is typically provided on campus.”
At Luke’s, students can expect a new menu complete with street tacos and house-made horchata, as well as tie-dyed uniforms.
The café is also expecting to hand out 300 free tacos on National Mental Health Day, Oct. 11. More information on that event is expected to be released soon
The only popular dining location with an undetermined fate is the Skyroom, a more formal dining area on the top floor of the TSC.
The Skyroom was closed during the pandemic and is not anticipated to reopen anytime soon.
The large dining room was both a student dining space and event space, and Dining Services is trying to figure out which path the space will take in the future.
Andersen hopes to one day reopen the Skyroom and provide affordable fine dining options for students, but for now it will remain unavailable.
Jared.Adams@usu.edu