For the first time, QU Dining held an open discussion with Quinnipiac students to talk about the food on campus. QU Dining had seven total representatives in the Echlin Center that welcomed students to come and express any problems, issues and feedback about the food on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
“We don’t like those social media posts,” said Chuck Couture, the Residential District Manager of QU Dining, on why they decided to hold the discussion. “We’re embarrassed when those happen. We don’t come to work every day (thinking), ‘how are we going to get on Barstool today?’ … We’re constantly trying to train and retrain our staff. And we have to do better.”
The most recent incident of “those social media posts” was a picture of uncooked chicken that the infamous Instagram account, QU Barstool, posted on on Nov. 4.
The next day, Nov. 5, Quinnipiac Dining sent an email out to all students and staff, addressing the Instagram post. That following week, on Monday, Nov. 11, the Student Government Association announced a town hall discussion between QU Dining and the student body.
QU Dining sent this email out to all students and staff on Nov. 5, in response to the Instagram post with raw chicken.
Corporate Executive Chef for Chartwells, Joe LaBombarda, reiterated that message from the Instagram comment in his opening statement during the discussion.
“It was a pretty honest mistake with the chicken,” LaBombarda said. “We don’t like to have mistakes. We were pretty embarrassed by it.”
While this is the first time QU Dining has done an open forum, it certainly is not the first time complaints about rotten or spoiled food have been brought about from Quinnipiac students.
Over the 2018-19 school year and through most of the first semester of this year, QU Barstool has had nine posts about QU Dining food. The pictures have ranged from raw chicken to moldy buns to even slugs in containers of food.
However, the forum gave students and staff a chance to discuss a wide variety of topics. From healthier options to late dining hours, anything and everything was on the menu for discussion.
QU Dining staff announced that they would be making some changes to the dining halls. Using the survey that QU Dining and SGA put out for the students, the staff was able to come up with some new ideas that either already are being put in place, or are nearing completion.
Some of those changes include the addition of potstickers to the menu, weekend hours for the acai bowl station in the main cafe, a BBQ concept called Smoked for main campus, daily availability of chicken noodle soup and a variety of pop-ups the main cafe. In addition, Sono will be introduced on York Hill as a zTex-Mex, do-it-your-own station.
One of the concerns of students was having food options, like these vegetables at the salad bar, out and in the open for long periods of time.
Students like junior history and education major Traci Duff, still want to see some other changes made.
“For me, bringing more healthier options like whether it be vegan or vegetarian,” Duff said. “I also think they can change some of their workers’ attitudes, like I’ve experienced their attitudes, I’ve had a worker just disregard my order, so I think that would be good.”
Duff wasn’t the only one to bring up the attitudes of workers. However, in response, QU Dining asked for specific identities of workers and said they would handle it in-house.
That was how most of the questions were answered — either a direct response with the students saying they were satisfied with or a promise from QU Dining to do better.
“I think this meeting was really good, I personally couldn’t sit in front of a whole group of students and face the criticism and answer questions, so I think it was good that they did this,” Duff said.
QU Dining staff also encouraged students to come directly to them – and not social media – in the future.
“If we do make a mistake, bring it to one of us and we’ll fix it,” Couture said. “We have a 100% money-back guarantee (policy). If you’re enjoying something, come and find me. A lot of you have, and I try to make it right. That’s my promise to you, so next time, find a manager, find a chef, and we’ll make it right.”
If students have any questions or concerns in regards to the food, they can text QU Dining directly at 203-889-9123.