Your Comments:

Oh Mr. Annis... I'm pretty sure that the restaurant selection button above Says "Black & Barrel"

I'm pretty sure that you are in fact the "BLOCKHEAD"?!? So, now I'm offended twice, and I'm a little embarrassed for you.

Well I guess I better fire my research department.  The anonymous comments always come through saying Block and Barrel and there has never been a complaint before.  Somewhere as we updated our site the typo must have snuck in.  I appreciate you being embarrassed for me and I’m sorry that you have been offended twice.  I’ll take the “Blockhead of the Weekâ€? title, I probably deserve it.

Hey Dave, First off I'd like to tell you how happy I am about the choices offered at the Vegetation Station this year. There are, however, some requests that I have. It would be nice to have plain brown rice and some sort of bean more often, not as a main course but just sort of on the side. But most importantly, I was wondering if you could put some natural peanut butter at the end of the vegetation station line. I know you already have regular peanut butter and soynut butter, but I'm into the whole natural foods thing. My suggestion: have someone bring over a jar of the natural peanut butter you sell at Xcetera (awesome stuff)and place it next to the others. Simple as that, and I can tell you you'd make me an extremely happy camper. Thanks for the great service!

You know, I could get to like this. A customer who writes in with a problem AND a solution to the problem.  I don’t even need to strain my “blockheadâ€? to solve this one.  I may even bring the peanut butter over myself.  After working for 8 years at a local council camp and 5 years at Philmont, I think I know a thing or two about happy campers.

Dave, My son has Celiac disease and I was promised 2 years ago that there would be a "gluten free" selection everyday.  That doesn't mean salad, non-breaded chicken, etc.  I have been told that there has not been a "labeled" gluten free bread or dessert.  I pay a good amount to OU for his meal plan and he isn't able to get what he needs.  Cna you please fix this?!  I'm sure there are many students at OU that have this same problem and would really appreciate it.  Thank you!

I guess we’ll have to do a better job of labeling our foods and getting info out to the students.  We have gluten free bread and dessert out on the Vegetation Station, I see it there everyday.  We also have a gluten free pasta and a gluten free 7â€? pizza crust in the

LaRoma pizza area.  Please have your son ask for us to make the pizza or pasta to order, the pizza only takes about 4 minutes.  Our pizza and pasta sauces are Hunts brand and they are gluten free.  Of course to find variety your son will have to eat salad, chicken, (the Char-Grill at Chick-fil-A or the rotisserie at the smokehouse) stir fry, and other foods we do have available. 

If you or your son have any questions please contact Dot Flowers at couch, she can better explain all of your options.

Dave, After my class this afternoon, I went to the Hot Bar in Cate. I placed my order and chatted with some friends while it was being dished up. When I got back to my room for a tasty dinner, I noticed that the side dishes I'd ordered were a little skimpy. 9 green beans and 7 carrot slices. Now, I realize that sides can't be heaping (on part of maintaining the H&F budget), but that comes to .11 per green bean and .14 per carrot slice. Who wants to pay 1.00 for 9 green beans? I won't do it again.

Very strange, I’ve never seen our people be skimpy with the veggies before.  First off, I want to commend you for taking your veggies, I wish more students would try to eat a balanced meal.  Secondly, I’m sorry you were “short scooped.â€?  I appreciate you taking the time to write to tell me about the problem.  We can solve it now.

Dave, This is my fourth year to live on campus, and not my first time to write to you about food services.  I'm going to leapfrog between things that are going well and things that need improvement.  I went to Crimson Crust on a regular basis last year, but sadly this year its hours have been cut back!  I went in the other night to get some pizza and pasta at 9:00 PM.  The sign said that it was open until 10:00 PM.  However, there was a notice posted that said that they had closed at 7:00 PM.  This is unacceptable.  I'm still unhappy about Crimson Crust not being open on weekends, but I understand the reasons behind it.

The new set-up at Casa Del Sol is awesome.  I really like being able to choose what I get there on a daily basis.  Just PLEASE PLEASE don't bring back the all-day breakfast bar to this line.  Take over any other one, but leave me my tex-mex!

And speaking of the all-day breakfast bar, this brings me into the Vegetation Station.  STOP putting breakfast stuff on it.  Stick that stuff over with the other breakfast stuff if must have it, but it's generally cold, bland, and of questionable quality.  The Vegetation Station can be really hit and miss, though overall I am happy that I have a vegetarian alternative in Couch, seeing as how I am a vegetarian.

The brick oven pizza is good.  Do you think that they could please try to get the cheese pizzas out on a more regular basis?  Artichokes are an aquired taste, and since every other kind of pizza on the line is covered in some kind of pork, it really limits my choices on that line. But the food there is great!

I love Roscoe's, but sometimes the coffee gets stale or runs out unexpectedly.  Maybe if the layout was adjusted to where the employees could check the coffee easily, then it would boost the consistantcy of quality.  Perhaps you could get them coffee containers that they could visually tell when they're low on coffee?

I really appreciate it that you listen to student feedback, and I know how easy it would be for you to ignore us until something drastic happened.  I've seen the food on campus steadily improve over the years, and I'd just like to congratulate you and your staff on the excellent job you all do.  And now it's almost lunch time at Couch! -Adam

Adam,  I appreciate that you took the time to write.  Four years, WOW, that’s great, I appreciate your loyalty and your business, we don’t have all that many “long termâ€? customers.

Crimson Crust and Cate in general have had a hard time with night staffing.  I thought we had that pretty well worked out.  I do know that we have had a lot of people out sick lately, some kind of bug has been going around, and we haven’t been able to maintain our hours. We are looking at some changes to Cate next year and one of the options we are looking at would be to offer pizza delivery from Crimson Crust to the residence halls and Traditions.  I’m not sure how that would affect the in store hours but it’s time we looked at some sort of delivery service. 

The new format on the Mexican line at Couch has been very popular.  I think we have gotten to a point where we are turning out some pretty good tasting and looking food.  We have talked about the all day breakfast and while we won’t get rid of it we may cut back on it a little and change it over to line 4 where we rotate the deli and other bars.

Chef Cathy is back and we now have another person to help with the veggie station.  I want to thank and commend xxxxxx for the job she has done keeping the Vegetation Station going these past weeks.

More plain cheese pizzas, less artichokes, that’s easy enough.  We started out the year trying all sorts of different pizzas and I think Steve has done a great job of being creative over there.  Now we are finding that you are eating pepperoni, pepperoni, and pepperoni as your favorite pizza.  OK, we got the message but I always want to have a specialty featured pizza out.  The Buffalo Chicken Pizza the other day was really good.

At the risk of sounding like all I am doing is bragging on our employees I am confident that Tim will fix any problems we have at Roscoe’s.  Our policy is to brew a pot of coffee and write the time on the pot.  Look for the time.  It tells you when the pot was brewed (or when it should come off the line, our places do it both ways).  Our coffee should never be in an air pot for over 2 hours. 

Finally, and I’ve said it many times before, I really like the perspective that older students have about our services.  They have seen the changes over the years and know that we are trying to improve our food and services little by little every year.  Personally I am excited by all the changes that are coming.  A major renovation to Couch, we are exploring a second Quiznos, one in housing, the new

You need more counter help!  One person taking orders and 3 people cooking is just silly.  I stood in line for 10 minutes while the cooks stood around talking.

It sounds to me like we are to “specialized.â€?  Folks need to flow to where the work is.

You should keep serving breakfast all days, especially on Sundays!  And the ladies need to be nicer…I know we’re rowdy college kids, but we still deserve service with a smile.

Pizza Lunchables!

It’s a flash back moment right?  I figure that you are there at your desk doing homework when all of a sudden you get a whiff of a pepperoni pizza that your suitemate has brought up to their room.  The smell of that tasty Crimson Crust pizza makes you “flash backâ€? to a simpler happy time when you had less homework, no papers or reports to write and when your most basic craving, food, could be sated by a pizza lunchable.  It might be a new condition, we can call it Juvenile Snackus Attackus.   Strange case, maybe we can get some kind of write-up in the Lancet or the Journal of Medicine.

A genius suggestion:

Put the straws by the cup lids!  Talk about efficiency!  Jeff

Hmmm, that makes too much sense.

Ashley @ Quiznos is so nice!  She is always friendly and helpful and she goes the extra mile to get things right.  Go Ashley…You guys need people like her in Cate.

Dear Dave, What kind of morale must the nutritionist who work w/in 25 ft of this place have?  If you really cared about the students here, you’d post the nutrition info on these calorie bombs just to let students know that A) you hate them and B) your nutritionist is ignored. Cinnabon.

Moderation in all things.  Yes a Cinnabon has a few calories, but If you run a marathon the next day, phew, who cares?

Can you bring back the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups @ Freshen’s in Couch?  The Heath Bars they replaced them with just don’t cut it.  Chocolate/peanut butter addict.

Dave, I appreciate all that you do with Housing and Food Services for the OU students, and with that I only have one question. I love love love Block & Barrel at Cate, so I especially like to use my meal exchanges there. I usually get the combo which comes with a medium soft drink, but I would love it if I was able to get a juice of some sort instead. I realize that the cost of apple/orange juice may be more, but I would be more than willing to sacrifice chips or a cookie for juice (by golly I love my juice!). I usually have to get the combo and then go to Cinnabon to get juice, then using my meal points. I'm not trying to be a "tightwad" with my points, I just don't see the point in not being able to substitute. I'm not sure if maybe there's a reasoning behind this, such that there is not enough demande to have to order that much of the product. I'm not asking that we can cross order stuff from multiple eateries, I was just curious about drinks because I think that is simple enough. Thanks for always listening & caring!

PS. In the online comment submission form, theres a misspelling and its typed "blAck and barrel"--didn't know if you wanted to fix that.

There certainly is an additional cost to a bottle of juice than there is to a cup of soda.  I’m not sure we can substitute one for the other.  We can look at some options for you though.

Maybe we can substitute the juice for an additional charge, not as much as buying one separately but enough to cover the additional cost.  I’ll see what we can do.

Oh, and thanks for the info on the Black and Barrel typo, where were you a week ago before I made a “Blockhead� of myself?

Hello Dave, while I enjoy all of the resteraunts at Couch and it is a great place to eat, I was very surprised to watch a worker, or businessman harass an employee there. The employee looked pretty upset about it, and personally, I didn't want to eat there after that. I saw the "Customer Service Satisfaction" desk, and I would like to say that while overall, the cafeteria is a good place to eat, I think the workers should be treated better than that. Maybe that's why they never look happy to be there. Just a thought.. A Concerned Student

I really need more information than this. I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.

I really enjoy the service that I have received at all of the dining establishments on campus.  My grandparents were here a week ago and I took them to Block and Barrel for dinner.  My grandfather said, "It was as good as Flora's (my grandmother's)." Even though your service and food are excellent I do have a few comments to make. First:  I understand that we can only use our meal exchanges when Couch is closed.  I have only an hour on MWF in which to grab something to eat. This doesn't sound like a big deal but both of my classes are at the front of campus.  By the time I get to Couch it is time for me to head back to class.  Why can't we use the exchanges whenever we need to.  It would make things a lot easier for me. Secondly:  All the food I eat at the cafeteria is well prepared, except for the poultry.  The first week of school I ate at Lifestyles and got a quarter of a chicen that was baked.  It was a little pink but I didn't really think about it.  The next day I missed class due to the fact that I was puking.  A few weeks ago I decided to get a dish with rice and spices and some type of poultry.  Again, I got sick.  I have stopped eating chicken unless it comes from Chick-fil-A.  I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but could you please go over the food preparation process for poultry with your workers to ensure that the poultry is cooked through. Thank you for having such a friendly staff and for creating this section for people to voice their comments.

You got my attention on the chicken, let’s talk about that first.  With as much chicken as we cook every day I’m sure that from time to time a piece isn’t cooked completely.  While I think that is rare (pun intended) you need to keep an eye out for it.  It will most likely happen with the full pieces, I seldom see this problem with the strips.  Remember though, chicken can be fully cooked and still be a little pink in color.  Make sure the juices are clear and you’ll be OK.  If in doubt ALWAYS bring it back, we need to know.

Currently meal exchanges only happen when Couch is closed.  We want you to eat at Couch and we offer meal plans with Meal Points to use when you are across campus.  With the Couch renovations starting next year this policy MAY change.