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COOKIES!!!!! Please Dave tell the people at Couch Express to make more cookies!! It is 11:00pm on a Monday night and they still have an hour til they close and they have NO cookies!!!! I need them desperately!!! Also, last year they had a tomato soup everyday...can we do that again this year? A friend made a comment that is soooo true... "tomato soup and grilled cheese go together like milk and cookies." I LOVE Cate Center cookies and staff, they rock...the food there is awesome (Block and Barrel)!!

In Xcetra...what happened to the wheatables, Pria white crunch bars, and the Campbell's vegetarian veggie soup?? I love what you do!! You're my favorite person on campus!!!

I appreciate the kind words. I love what I do too.  It really is important that you find something in life that you enjoy doing and I certainly have found that here at OU.  I’m not sure why we would run out of cookies, we have the little ovens in Couch Express so we can make cookies anytime.  I hope our folks aren’t more concerned about having a few cookies leftover than making sure we have enough to finish the night.

Tomato Soup, I’ll check why we have changed the rotation.  I’ll also ask what happened to the foods you mentioned at Xcetera.

I have a problem with lactose and I noticed at the beginning of the year, Couch had a soy milk option, but now it seems to have disappeared. Am I not looking in the right spot? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I’m sorry you have been having a hard time finding the soy milk.  It is on the cereal bar in pitchers set in ice.

ummmm.... the food was better last year! there were more options and better food. Bring back the calzones, all you have is pizza and poor tasting pasta. More chicken fried steak, and chicken parmesan, please. Onion rings at the grill are the best side dish, and you never have them. Oh, yeah the booth tables are all wobbly. I like eating at the caf, but it is always too similar.

Really?  I thought we were doing pretty well getting some new foods out this semester.  The new pizza line is popular and the pasta options while not extensive are pretty good.  You can serve up your own pasta or have it baked in the oven (which I really like!)  We have served calzones a couple of times in the past few weeks.  Right now we just have too hard a time keeping up with the demand for calzones to do them as often as we’d like.

But Couch is so much more than just pizza and pasta.  The new stir-fry set-up offers some nice variety and I’m really excited about what we will be able to do with the Mexican line.  Tell me those made to order enchiladas or nachos aren’t great …..

I will ask the Couch folks to work on putting a little more variety into the sides, like the onion rings, because I do think we have gotten a little predictable.  While we don’t serve chicken parmesan at Couch all that often, we do serve it every day Monday through Friday at Cate.  It’s good, check it out.  Finally, we will check out the tables.

Dave!  Bring back the splenda!  I know you can request it, but this simply doesn't cut it.  When ever I ask for splenda, the worker gives me four packets.  I know it costs more than sugar, but come on Dave, I am a sweet tea addict and I use about 25 packets in my tea.  It is embarrassing to have to ask for more and more and when I do the worker makes snide remarks like, "that isn't healthy" or "geez! you need more?"  No one should have to be embarrassed like that when trying to get their beverage.  I'm so sick of being treated like this that I've been buying my wrap at Cate, and my drink at Burger King.  Drinks cost you about 9 cents each and you are limiting the amount of splenda we can take to maximize profit?  That is just GREEDY when when you charge $1.20 each!  Is $1.12 a pop not enough profit for you to spare a couple pennies in splenda?  Even at $.01 a packet you guys are still making $.87 off of my purchase ($1.20-.08-.25)  STOP YOUR GREED DAVE, AND BRING THE SPLENDA BACK!

News flash #1, the Splenda is back.  News flash #2, we do make decisions based on what things cost us.  I don’t think that is being greedy, that to me is good business.  News flash #3, we always try to balance what we can offer you and the budget, we have to in order to stay in business.

I know that the cost of a meal plan at $1555.00 seems expensive but it is really just $12.75 a day.  I think that is pretty reasonable.  Finally, where do you come up with these food costs that you throw around?  They are a little off.  We try to maintain a 32% food cost, a 32% labor cost, and overhead costs at 32%.  That leaves very little room for error.

The cups that Crossroads uses for large coffee tend to have pinhole leaks. After about 5 or 10 minutes, coffee starts to seep through and cause a mess. In addition, the lids often don't fit very well, and coffee leaks through when you try to take a drink. All of this makes the coffee less portable. Please fix this.

I’ll ask Rick to look at this.  Thanks for the heads up!

I have determined that Taco Mayo (at Cate, at least) is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of Food Service.  When I go to Taco Mayo during the day, which is almost every week day, the service is fast, friendly, and competent.  The night shift is another story.  I was there at around 8:00 on Friday the 22nd, for instance, and ordered what I always order - veggie burrito.  Now, I will grant you, it's not a normal order, and when the semester was just starting, there were some problems of the newer people not being familiar with this off-the-menu item (thankfully, supervisors were almost always on hand to set the matter straight).  That's to be expected; there are always little rough spots at the beginning of a new semester, and I don't begrudge anyone that.

My "dining experience" Friday was less than ideal.  The two guys manning the counter couldn't figure out how to ring up my order, but they didn't bother getting a manager - oh no, they just made up something and wound up overcharging me by nearly 25%.  I was hungry and in a hurry, so I gritted my teeth and paid up.  Then they had to ask me how to fix the order.  Again, no one bothered to get a manager or supervisor, nor did there seem to be one anywhere about.  Finally, when I was handed my food, I asked - politely - if I could have a bag, because I was getting my food "to go."  The "nice" young man handing me my food looked directly at me and said - after I asked for the bag - "Thank you, have a good night."  After which he turned away from me and started doing something else. 

Perhaps - perhaps - he did not hear me.  But I in no way have a small or quiet voice, and he was standing less than two feet away from me as I spoke directly to him while we were facing each other.  It was not noisy.  There was only one other person at the counter; I should note that the other guy who was manning the register when I ordered was also occupied, and she wasn't being served either.

I just stood there in shock for a good few minutes until the guy turned around to see me still there; I asked him for a bag again, and this time he got one for me.  A supervisor had finally wandered up at this point - from who-knows-where - and asked if she could help me.  I took my bag and left; any attempt to explain would have only delayed my already-late dinner even further, and I had frankly had enough frustration for one day.  When I walked off, the girl at the counter had still not been served, even though there were - at that time - two workers and a supervisor standing no more than three feet from her.

I need to emphasize that I have never had this problem with the day shift.  Even at lunch, I can place my order, pay, get my food and be gone in less time than it took the night shift to even ring up my food, the entire transaction being considerably more pleasant, as well.  There is no other comment for this except to say: do something.  If these people don't want to work customer service, they can get other jobs that don't require them to be nice to people.  I'm not asking to be fawned over, just a basic level of competence and congeniality.

Oh my, where do I start?  Please accept my apology for your poor experience at the Cate Taco Mayo, that certainly is not the service level we want to present to our customers. 

Special orders do present a challenge and if we don’t have strong training on all shifts we will not be doing things the same way.  We’ll look into that.  I am convinced that our employees want to give you good service. Sometimes we don’t give them the proper tools such as training.  If we are doing a good job during the day but not at night then we know what to do, we just haven’t done a good job training the night crew how to do it.

I would be willing to bet that the employee at Taco Mayo did not hear you when you asked for the bag.

Could we get some of that vegetable bread at Crossroads??  Had it for the first time at the Redbud Cafe, and it was delicious!  Thanks :)

It is good isn’t it?  We have used that bread at the Redbud Café for a number of years now.  The veggie bread is not something we plan to use at Cate, it is something that we bake ourselves and it is an item that makes the Redbud Café special.  Your meal plans are accepted at Redbud, please go check it out!

Long time reader, first time writer. It's my third year on campus, and I'd be lying if I said my decision to stay here this long wasn't due in part to the convenience and quality of your food service operations.,I'd like to request a new product at Xcetera.  Since the old days of the Cate "C-store" there has been a definite lack of flavored milk.  Here's what I would like to see: Hershey's Milkshake (Specifically the Strawberry flavor) Sure, it is not quite on the healthy side, but what it lacks in nutrition, it makes up in taste.  The thick, creamy goodness of a Hershey's Milkshake is something you have to try to believe!  It's all the goodness of a homemade milkshake in a refrigerated dairy product! Dave, I challenge you to go buy the strawberry version of this product! If you don't like it, I'll give --you-- your money back! (Well...actually I'm kind of poor...pay you back in meal points instead!) Thanks for the great service, Jonathan

Wow, I’ve never been offered a money back guarantee by a student!  Keep your points though, you don’t have to convince me, I’m a big fan of strawberry milk, I keep strawberry syrup in my refrigerator at home.  I can’t say I’ve tried the Hershey Strawberry Milkshake, but I will.  I remember the flavored milk at Cate, I’ll see if we can get it again.

I just have one complaint: Wendy's does not carry straws long enough to fit their large cups.  It's really annoying. Other than that, everything seems to be in good working order.  Keep up the excellent work. -Sally

Ouch, I thought we had a long straw at Wendy’s, I’ve seen them somewhere in the food court.  We’ll get them.  And how about those Vanilla Frosties!!!  Great huh?

I hate to be someone to complain about a service being provided to me, but this was just a little bit scary when I saw it.  Today was bread bowl day, and I think to everyone that eat's at couch express, bread bowl day is their favorite day.  However, when I got mine today, I noticed the guy that was making mine, wasn't wearing any gloves!  Now this might have been okay if he was just scooping soup into a peice of bread, but he dug the inside bread out with his bare hands!  I've worked in a deli before and that would definetely be considered a health risk, even if he had just washed his hands.  Thank you for your hard work in responding to all of the kitchen comments!

We’ll take care of that right away.  All Food Service employees should be wearing gloves when they handle food that is “ready to serveâ€? and won’t be cooked any further.

Beat Texas!