The food offerings in Danner Hall are more robust than they were at the beginning of the semester, with the addition of more hot items and a salad bar to the menu.
The changes come after students addressed the Board of Trustees on Sept. 20, but Assistant Director of Auxiliary Services Nate McBride said changes were in the works even before then.
“We are excited to be able to expand the menu at the cafeteria, including a salad bar, hot breakfast items and some hot lunch specials,” said McBride. “Prior to hearing students’ concerns at a Board of Trustees meeting in September, we had already discussed the possibility of adding a few additional hot and fresh items in food services. The student’s comments encouraged us to move forward with those plans. Specifically, we have added a salad bar, breakfast burritos, sausage/egg/cheese on a muffin sandwich, chicken strips, chicken sandwich and a few others.”
In September, students voiced concerns over a lack of food offerings on campus during a meeting of the Board of Trustees.
At the time, Alex Breitler, Delta’s marketing and communications director, said via email that the college was “actively looking at potential strategies to improve food service, but we don’t have any specific details to share yet. We will definitely keep students informed as we get further along in the process.”
In a mid-October follow-up, Breitler shared that the hot and fresh food program has returned, and is now available for breakfast and lunch every Tuesday through Thursday.
Danner Hall will also be testing menu items and gauging their popularity by sales, in order to offer the best affordable menu moving forward.
Breitler shared the following menu items that will be tested this month: breakfast will be serving sausage/egg/cheese on an English muffin.
Lunch will have a stocked salad bar, along with hot food items such as, chicken-fried beefsteak with mashed potatoes and corn, chicken Strips, spicy chicken sandwich, and chicken wings.
“As we figure out buying patterns and product availability look for future updates on daily specials. We are still experiencing periodic challenges in obtaining inventory so we are not able to always offer all items listed. We occasionally have staff shortages that limit our ability to offer some prepared items,” said Breitler.
So far, the response to the new items has been positive.
“The initial response seems to be good, so we are continuing to evaluate which items to provide and how often to provide them. Our current plans are to regularly offer the hot breakfast sandwich and burritos and come up with a rotation for the hot lunch items,” McBride said.
Delta students may also soon be able to offer feedback on the program.
“We are still experiencing some challenges in consistently getting products we want due to supply chain issues like other food service operations, and we occasionally are shorted [sic] staffed, both of which can limit our ability to offer hot items consistently. However, we continue to do our best to provide additional selection for the campus community. We are still considering possible methods of receiving additional feedback from students and hope to implement a reasonable method(s) in the near future. Thanks to those students who have already made their voices heard; we are here to serve students and their thoughts and concerns are very important to us,” explained McBride.