Your Comments:

Dave - Thank you for the Tofutti pints! You're a superhero!

The credit goes to the crew at Xcetera, Susan and Chris took you up on your challenge to get the pints.  I’m glad we were able to get them for you.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I have to comment on the subject of Lent.  A couple of kitchen comments ago, it was suggested that perhaps there could be a breakfast bar at lunch on Fridays, and that they make sure there is an adequate supply of cheese pizza.  I don't think that these requests are too demanding or far-fetched.  It seems as though Couch will bend over backwards to appease the vegetarians and vegans who write in, so I feel that similar accomodations to requests should be given to anyone who writes in.  I was going to let the whole thing go until I saw the all-day breakfast bar on a Thursday.  Seriously, could that not have been done on a Friday?  I really don't think it's too much to ask.  Some of us who are abstaining from meat do not like fish or vegetarian selections.  I do not think it is too much to ask for like six Fridays out of the whole year to ensure that varied meatless options are provided. 

I’m surprised that we didn’t move an all day breakfast or two to Fridays.  I know we feel that we have a good variety of foods for our students who are trying to observe Lent.  I don’t think we try to appease anyone, rather we are trying to provide a wide variety of foods for all of our customers.

Hey Dave, theres a kid who works in cate and drives a red truck with rims, tell him he isnt cool for taking smoking breaks and blasting his bass to where all of quad 2 shakes.  i am sick of waking up or not being able to study because of his dang bass for 15 min all the time.  and i live on the 3rd floor!

We’ll pass this along.

Dear Freshmen This is to remind you that all good things come in moderation.  I'm glad to know that many of you do not wish to lose the money that your parents (and in some cases, you yourselves) have put into your meal plans.  Really, I am.  However, there is a point at which you must stop and think about what you are doing.  Waiting until Sunday night to spend all your meal exchanges on cereal and juice at Crossroads is not the best example of saving money.  You would, in fact, save a lot more money by using your meal exchanges throughout the week.  I understand that some people (myself included) have work and classes at times that make this somewhat difficult.  I understand that no one will use every meal exchange every week.  Students have lives off campus, too.  However, the occasional excess meal exchange does not equal the gigantic lines that inevitably form at Crossroads before midnight on Sundays.  The length of these lines leads me to a different hypothesis.  The students who frequent these lines almost never eat on campus.  If they did, their maximum 500 meal point budget would be gone by the end of February, maybe mid March.  Now, there is nothing wrong with not eating on campus.  You are all welcome to eat wherever you like.  The problem is, after spending all the money to eat off campus, some of you then try to be "frugal" by  buying twelve bottles of juice--2 bottles for every $6 meal exchange you didn't use.  If you really don't want to waste money, you could try eating on campus a little more often.  If you still can't manage to use all your meal exchanges, maybe invite an off campus friend to join you in the cafeteria.  Trust me, that meal plan cost a lot more than a few bottles of juice.

The price a student pays for a meal plan is very reasonable, around $12.75 per day.  It really isn’t difficult to use up both your meals and your points if you use them on a regular basis.  We try to make it as easy as possible.  We have operations open around the clock and we let you use your meals for unlimited guests, something that is not done at any other college that I know of.

We are going to have to do something about the Sunday night crush to “use up” all of your meals at the end of the week.  We especially have a problem coming back from breaks and vacations (we talked about that last week).  It doesn’t make sense.  Upper class students can get a block meal plan which gives you all of your meals up front.  When we made these plans available to all students a few years ago we found that students didn’t budget any better and had meals left at the end of the semester.

It may be that we will have to limit the number of times you can use your meal plan to three swipes a meal period.  That would still allow you to bring guests to dinner but would stop the people that use 5 or 6 meals at a time.

We will keep discussing this but I would really like to hear from you on ways we could make the meal plans work better for you.

Please ignore the ratings above.  I left the default values.  I am writing to express my hearty support of the decision of Crossroads to switch to cage-free eggs!!  This is excellent.  Anyone who has taken the time to explore the conditions under which caged egg-providing hens must live would most likely never again support this activity by purchasing non cage-free eggs.  I would love to see all of the OU food services go cage free. Phillip

Again, as I said last week, we will start by offering the cage-free eggs at Crossroads.  As we develop our local source of eggs we will try to expand the program.

Dear Dave, I am grumpy.  Why?  Because today (Tuesday, March 27) I tried to go to Chick-Fil-A at 5 p.m.  I was told that the restaurant closes at 5 and I was just a few minutes too late.  That is NOT what I'm grumpy about.  I've worked at fast food restaurants, and I understand that the staff wants to close exactly on time so they can go home.  Here's why I'm grumpy.  I'd been craving Chick-Fil-A all day, and I planned to go by to get an early dinner before my 6 p.m. class.  I wasn't sure what time the restaurant closed, so I looked up the hours online.  The official Housing and Food Services webpage told me that it was open until 7 p.m.  This is the page I visited: http://www.housing.ou.edu/content/view/49/54/.  So you can imagine how grumpy I must have felt when showing up 2 hours before the stated closing time to find out that the restaurant was closed.  The staff at Chick-Fil-A were friendly and told me that the 7:00 closing time was from last YEAR.  I don't know whether they meant! last school year or just last semester, but either way, it's really unacceptable to have this misinformation posted on the official Food Services website so long after the fact.  Please change it so that other hungry chicken lovers don't get grumpy like me! Sincerely, Kara Chiodo Graduate Student, Regional and City Planning P.S. The word "supervisor" at the bottom of this web comment form is spelled incorrectly.

This is the second time in as many weeks that we have had this problem.  We did not do a good job of updating our web site when we changed the hours of the operations.  I apologize for the inconvenience and have put a couple of Chick-fil-A coupons in the mail for you.

My comment is not about the food or service, which are fine . . . but about the signs I've noticed behind the counter instructing employees what to do in case of emergency (fire or tornado): 1) lock up money; 2) go to a safe place.  This is, quite simply, outrageous and offensive.  In case of emergency employees should seek safety immediately.  Just think about what that priority listing on those signs says about you as a manager, and OU as an institution.  Just consider what every bank teller is told if confronted with a robber: forget about protecting the money, consider your own safety, and the safety of others, first and foremost.  This policy is a perversion of moral, not to say common, sense.  I would appreciate the courtesy of a response.  Zev Trachtenberg, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy,

I appreciate your concern for our employees but I think you are a little off base with this comment.  We are very concerned about our employees safety and have put many obvious and not so obvious security options in place.  Just like a bank, we tell our cashiers and employees that if confronted by a robber to just give them the money. Even bank tellers are taught to secure their cash drawers in a controlled emergency situation. 

I think that is an important distinction.  We have emergency procedures in place so if and when we do have an emergency we don’t have people panicking.  It takes a few seconds to close the cash drawer and log off the register. Each operation has a different set of instructions.  Actually at Bookmark we would not evacuate people in a tornado situation, they are in a safe location.  That is not necessarily true at all our other operations.

So I guess what I’m saying is your concern is noted.  Is it “Outrageous and Offensive” or a “perversion of moral, not to say common, sense?”  No, it’s not immoral to protect the University’s interests as well as our employees safety when it can be done.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for starting to use cage free eggs at certain dining establishments on campus. I feel that this is a very important step towards providing healthier foods on our campus. I'm glad that OU is taking the initiative to use more sustainable practices and I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate the efforts. Thank you!

I'm a big fan of the Ms. Vickie's chips at Quiznos and I've noticed that they are a favorite among many students. I see that they are a product of Frito-Lay, so can we get them at other eateries as well, specifically Block and Barrel? --Ms. Vickie Wannabe

I’m not sure, they may be proprietary to Quiznos but I don’t think so, I’m sure I’ve seen them other places.

I think that the restaurants on campus all do a great job.  What would be even better is if OU lead the nation in the switch to certified free-range eggs, a more humane way to farm.  Thank you for your time. 

We have to start somewhere, and it will take awhile to get our sources developed but I see us doing a lot more with locally grown foods.  We will start with the cage free eggs and grow from there.

The pizzas at Crimson Crust are very good--just the right kind of crust, unlike the perpetual cardboard-like consistency of the pizza crusts at the caf, but can we get more variety of toppings?  Something like a chicken-spinach-and artichoke heart pizza would be fantastic!

Wow, living proof of why we make different kinds of pizzas, it’s because people have different kinds of tastes.  I’m sure we can expand the pizza variety a little bit.  We may even have to introduce a second crust (like Crimson Crusts) at Couch.

I go to Cate Center almost everyday and I have to say that they people working there are amazing! James that runs the hot bar is the best! He makes the best chicken strips! Go James!!!!! Thanks for keeping me filled and happy

Hey Dave, I read a comment somewhere from a comment made in february that you guys were making a database of the nutrtion labels for the foods served in the caf.  I was just wondering if you guys have been able to complete that task or not? Spanks!

Slow progress, we will be working to complete the project over the summer and roll it out this coming fall.

Dave, I went to Burger King just before Spring Break. I won't be going there again. The workers were touching their hair and faces in the midst of preparing food. After watching one of the employees actually sneak food while preparing another order, I decided to just leave. On another note, I was really pleased with the efficiency of the Crossroads staff over Spring Break. They are a terrific crew. Thanks.

I appreciate the update.

Looking ahead to next fall!

We are already hard at work planning our new services for next fall, I thought I’d take a little time to let you know what we will be doing.

First and most exciting to me is that we will be starting our long awaited Couch renovations this summer.  We will be taking one third of Couch out of service for each of the next three semesters to do the work.  What that means is that the Couch World’s Fare area will be closed for this upcoming fall semester.  We will rotate some of the World’s Fare lines to other lines but we will have less seating and a much more crowded space next year.  One of the things we are doing to reduce the crunch is to keep the Sport’s Grill operations open until midnight next year.  Chick-fil-A, Pizza and Pasta, Freshens, and Athens Café (at least the gyros) will be open Sunday through Thursday until midnight.  Same all you care to eat options as you have now.

Meal exchanges at other restaurants will start a little later, probably 9 pm. but we haven’t really determined that yet and I thought you’d have a say in that.

Cate will be having some adjustments too.  We are going to move the Block and Barrel Sandwich shop into the Crimson Crust space and create multiple serving lines so we can serve you quicker.  We will revamp the hot bar and in the spot where you now get sandwiches we will be offering an all day breakfast menu with eggs, omelets, French toast, and pancakes.  Add in some breakfast meats and real down to earth fresh hash browns and we’ll have our own little slice of breakfast heaven.

We will have a new Nutritional database completed and ready to go as well as other enhancements to our web site.  BTW, have any of you been checking out the daily coupons we have had on our Housing and FS web site?  If not, you should.  I hope we will also have some “menu reminders” for you to be able to put in your favorite foods and when it is served at Couch you will get an e-mail alert.

On the safety side we are installing a temperature tracking system on all of our refrigerators, hot and cold holding units, our dish machines, and other equipment so that we can track, with an updated temp every 15 minutes, our holding temps.  This will be a great tool for us to make sure all the food we serve is bought, stored, prepared, and served safely.

More details on all of these initiatives will be coming your way as we get them.  OK, now for a little contest.  In order to ensure food safety we buy and use gloves in our food production.  We train our people to change their gloves often. 

The question is:  How much money did Food Services spend last year on plastic gloves?

Please e-mail your answers to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  The person getting closest to the correct number will win One free Quiznos Sandwich every week for a whole semester.  That’s right, 17 sandwiches.  Quite a prize don’t you think?  Make sure to include your guess, name, and e-mail address so I can get back with you.  Good Luck!