UD’s catering service is efficient, well-oiled machine

Ever wonder what keeps UD running smoothly? Up Close & Personnel, a new weekly feature, profiles the employees who keep UD ticking around the clock throughout the year. This week the focus is on UD's catering service.

Dining Services personnel (from left) Patty Cox, Nicole Bailey and Mary Francis Gehrman prepare food in Pencader Dining Hall’s kitchen.

5:25 p.m., May 4, 2004--Behind the neat rows of sandwiches, colorful fruit platters and tempting cookie trays at catered events on campus is a dedicated team of student workers, cooks, drivers and managers.

UD’s catering service meets a wide range of needs, from a coffee break for 10 during an office meeting to black-tie dinners and food for 2,000 at a convocation, catering director Nicole Bailey said.

The catering service is part of UD’s Dining Services, which manages all food and beverage operations on campus including student residential dining and retail outlets.

Each unit operates individually, but they occasionally provide backup staff to each other when the need arises, Douglas Quattrini, general manager, explained.

The catering service employs 60 students, who make up the largest part of a team that also includes four drivers, four cooks and half a dozen cold food preparation staff.

Bailey thumbed through a thick file of orders and menus and then ran her finger down one page as she described a typical day last month: Continental breakfast for 160 in Clayton Hall, 150 in Townsend Hall, 100 in Morris Library and 30 at Trabant University Center.

Nadine Slack and Christy Goss take catering orders by phone and e-mail in their Pencader Dining Hall office.

Later that day, the catering team served lunch for 35 at Perkins Student Center, 30 at Trabant University Center, two groups of 160 and 145 in Clayton Hall, 195 in Trabant, and 110 at the Bob Carpenter Sports/Convocation Center. The day ended with dinner for 175 in Clayton Hall.

“It’s not uncommon for a manager to work until midnight on one night and be in at 6 the next morning,” Bailey said. “I think it’s fun. It’s never the same day twice. It’s not boring around here!”

The catering service day usually begins with phone, fax or e-mail orders that are received and processed by catering coordinators Nadine Slack and Christy Goss.

Copies of each e-mail order are sent to three computers, and orders left overnight on voice mail are retrieved every morning and added to the list.

“This is where the red phone is!” Goss said. “It’s fun talking to different customers; you meet a whole lot of people. Some people call every day to confirm that we’ll be there with a gallon of coffee, and there are people who call for an event with 1,000. Some people worry they will not have enough food.”

Marcy Wiley and Nancy Miceli load a Dining Services truck with trays for a luncheon.

In addition to taking regular orders, Goss and Slack also handle calls from students’ parents asking about the menus in the student dining halls or ordering birthday cakes or cookies for them, Slack said.

Processing the orders and putting everything in place for each day’s scheduled events turns the large catering kitchen in Pencader Dining Hall on the Laird campus into a beehive, where speed, precision and coordination are critical ingredients, Bailey said.

“If a truck is running late, it can throw a wrench into the whole day,” Bailey said.

Except for small, last-minute orders, large orders must be received days or weeks ahead of time.

“There have been days where it’s ‘drop everything and everybody run!’” Slack said. “We have to decide what’s important.”

Althea Gibson, one of the drivers, said it takes more than driving skills to get through her day shuttling food, supplies and equipment between the kitchen and several buildings every day.

Senior Gabriella Truncale and freshman Alan Rayfield work together in Clayton Hall getting ready for a 400-person luncheon.

“The people I work with are fun,” Gibson said. “If you didn’t have that, the job would be very difficult. On some late nights, everybody is tired but we still get the job done. It’s an experience. We have to keep a positive attitude about our job.”

There is no shortage of a positive attitude among the students employed by the catering service, Quattrini said.

“Working with the students is the most fun,” Quattrini said. “It keeps you updated on things, and you get their take on issues.”

Bailey said the students’ youthful energy often helps the team survive the toughest days, such as last Thanksgiving weekend, when the crew had to haul equipment through eight inches of snow to the truck after serving food at a reception at the Bob Carpenter Center.

It takes such commitment to provide excellent service regardless of the size of the order, Bailey said.

“It may be an event for a major donor or a coffee break for 10 people that a college might have every week for 10 weeks,” Bailey said. “We are trying to make sure that everybody receives the highest quality of service that they possibly can.”

Article by Martin Mbugua
Photos by Kathy Atkinson

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