Students flock to Pencader Dining Hall reopening

4:50 p.m., Oct. 8, 2003--A chocolate grand-reopening cake greeted students as they entered Pencader Dining Hall for lunch Tuesday. Chris Peters of Nonna Ristorante in Newark took a turn as guest chef. Mood music played, and YoUDee entertained in a chef’s hat.

The current issue of Food Management magazine features a color spread on the rejuvenated dining hall. A year in the making, the renovation includes new food service equipment and a dining area redecorated with new carpet and furnishings.

Robin A. Moore, senior food service director for residential dining and catering services, said business has been up since they started tweaking the menu and the presentations—dinners are up from about 700 to 900, lunches are up from 225 to 425, and breakfasts are up from 130 to about 170.

At Tuesday’s reopening, students checked out 16 new gravity-fed cereal dispensers and watched staffers make muffaleta—sandwiches on big, crusty rounds of bread. The largest crowd gathered around a food station that featured gourmet toppings and hamburgers, turkey burgers and veggie burgers.

In case the new food stations draw an overflow crowd, a cafeteria section facing Pencader A has been retooled as “The Terrace’’ to accommodate extra diners. Moore said the cafeteria section also will figure in future catering and corporate meeting packages for visitors using the Clayton Hall Conference Center and the adjacent Courtyard by Marriott hotel now under construction.

Moore said she’s given her staff a challenge: If they draw 1,000 for dinner any two nights this semester, she’ll treat all of them to dinner out.

Where would Pencader’s food staff go to eat?

“Probably Outback Steak House,’’ she said.

Article by Kathy Canavan
Photos by Kevin Quinlan

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.