30-Minute Flash Topics: University Culinary Services and Dining

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Hello everybody, thanks for joining us here tonight. We're gonna wait a few moments before we get started and let people jump on in. But if you are joining us here tonight, you are joining our virtual session on university culinary services and dining. My name is Brianna Benson. I am one of the senior assistant directors of recruitment here in the Admissions Office and I am joined tonight by summer who is part of our university housing and Culinary Services department so.

As you guys are signing in couple of housekeeping items up at the top right hand corner of your screen, if you do need closed captioning for any reason, there is a closed captioning button. You can turn that off or on at any point should you need that resource, and then two summer is going to give us some information about our dining plans. What food is like on campus, and so she'll have a brief presentation and we'll have some time for some question and answers at the end. If you do have any questions.

Feel free to throw those into the question section and we'll be able to answer as much as we can. I'm at the very end of the presentation and I'll also be putting different links and resources in the chat as well, but let's go ahead and jump started summer. I'll let you introduce yourself and we'll go forward.

George, thanks Bri like. Like she mentioned, my name is Summer Dunleavy. I am the assistant director of Marketing for housing and culinary. Thanks for joining us. If you are back on, you just saw this before so hopefully it'll be a little different talking about food this time. If you were on the housing one. But we're glad that you're here and basically how you're going to eat on campus. And that's super important to us. And like Bri said, please drop any questions.

To have and we'll. We'll get to that at the end. So as a first and second year resident, it is required to live on campus. And with that we actually have four meal plans that you can choose from. If you were looking before we actually just rolled this out last week, so you're like, wait, I always thought there was three. There is 4 starting in the fall, so we have our three unlimited plans, the gold, the Kent and Blue Plan.

Each of those are unlimited swipes with into our all you care to eat facilities. We have two on campus.

East Way, which is on one side of campus and dining which is on the other side of campus. Each of them come with meal exchange meal exchange can be used in some of our dining facilities on campus, such as hippie chicken, which is our chicken place. Kind of like a Chick-fil-A for lack of words and you can get an entree side and a drink with one of those meals. And you could go to Rosie our late night destination.

On campus, they're open till 1:00 AM and get an entree aside and a drink. By using one of those meals, each of them also come with guest meals. Guest meals can be if a friend comes and visits, or a sibling comes in visit or a parent comes and visits. You can take them into the all you care to eat facilities. The new one is the Flash 200 block plan. This is 200 meals a semester so the difference between that meal plan.

And the other three meal plans is you have to keep track of how many meals you have. You only get 200 for the entire semester. It also comes with meal exchange. Should just remember you go to Rosie's for that late night burger and fries and a drink and you can still use a meal exchange, but it's going to keep declining from that 200 balance that you have. It is per semester so meal plans are per semester. This one comes with $300 in declining balance.

And new IT comes with downtown dining dollars, downtown dining dollars. We've partnered with our restaurant partners downtown and Kent and that you can. Actually, we have money now that you can go and spend in those locations. There is a list on our website, so please go visit kent.edu/dining and.

Check out those locations and these meal plans as well. So if you're like wait, I didn't get everything on that slide. Definitely go check those out as well and that comes with some meal guesses as well.

If you are an upperclassman or even a commuter or transfer and not living on campus, and that mandatory is in the mandatory time frame I'm, you can pick from any one of our meal plans which includes the 200 block plan, the 100 block plan, the Flash fix, Flash Flex 15 plan, and the On-the-go plan. They all are per semester, so I'd be 200 meals a semester, 100 meals a semester, and 15 meals a semester.

The top three come with meal exchanges to use within our dining facilities. They all come with declining balance and just the 200 and 100 come with guest meals and the on-the-go plan is just strictly declining balance, so there's no meals to go into the all you care to eat facility, but you can use your declining balance to get into those facilities. So say when you move off campus, you get the 15 flex plan and use your 15 meals.

Do you want to go to the Mardi Gras dinner that we just had last night? You can use some of that declining balance to get into to eat there, so that's the difference between our meal plans.

So I explained a little bit about our meal plans and knowing them meal swipes. As I mentioned, it's a block of plans to the access areas that all you care to eat, areas you can swipe using your flash card. It's all housed on your flash card. You don't use it. That's your room key. That's your your your way to get into your laundry. And that's your meal plan. Everything is on that flash card that will get you into eastway and dining.

You just tap it, and there's a cashier there. We do have it to go program, so if you don't want to sit in and eat at our those two facilities, you can still swipe and get all you care to eat and get as many containers as you want. I don't know if you want to carry more than one or two, but you're more than welcome to grab more than what you would like and and and Carrie, I guess you can say, and you can take it with you back to your residence hall or wherever you want to go. Neil Exchange is just that I mentioned Rosie's are.

Late night destination, but you can always get it at D grab and go hippychick and Simon Cafe and then in our Metro Deli areas which are in East Way as well as the hub.

Declining balance it's dollar for dollar, so you can go in and use that at our sushi place at our Starbucks location. Einstein bagels. That's where a lot of people end up using them as well as our markets. We have two markets on campus for quick kind of grocery type thing. It's kind of like a sheets or a 711 kind of market and then the guest meals as well that we talked about.

A lot of students come to campus and they're like where in the world are all of your locations. And so here's a map. This is online as well, so definitely check that out. It's under the hours of operation you can check on the PDF and this map will come up as well and we do have something in located on the one side of campus in our architecture building that's Simon Cafe. We have something on the complete opposite side of campus in the Recreation Center and that is our Summit cafe.

And quick grabbing goes stuff, some salad sandwiches, things to that extent, uh, we do have two Starbucks on campus. We have the one on the Esplanade which is kind of in the middle of campus and one in our library. So if you're studying or using the computer or getting tutoring or why ever you are in the library, you can grab your Starbucks to get you through that hard study session.

We have the two. All you care to eat facilities eastway and dining roses are late night destination which is over in Tri Towers and then we have the diagram and go which is located right next to the dining hall. So if you don't want to sit and eat and want to grab something real quick you can do that and I think I hit all of them. Oh and our hub we have the Flash Bistro which is open Monday through Friday and.

They have hot meals during the week and they're open I believe from 4:50 and then we have the UM Metropolitan Deli, which is a sandwich and salad made to order, kind of.

Concept and then we have hippie chicken. While blue our sushi place and then Einstein bagels as well.

And that is all I have in regards to actual meal plans. I'm going to keep it on this dining location slide, in case anybody has any questions, but a couple other things. Having a meal plan gives you like flexibility to eat anywhere on campus as well as you can pay for your meal plan with your financial aid. It's, you know, really easy and simple to get in and out. Get food at the all you care to eat facilities you're going to eat with your friends on campus.

So you can get a sandwich. It's easy and on the run or snack from the markets and you can add declining balance on at anytime you want throughout the year. So that's really cool. Declining balance rolls over from semester to semester until you no longer enrolled in Kent State, so you can just keep on rolling all that money over until you are no longer enrolling. You leave the university.

Let's see here, as I mentioned per university policies first and second year students are required to purchase a meal plan and live on campus.

And if you want to change your meal plan, you can do it within the first two weeks of when classes begin, so you get in there and you're like the 200 plan is not going to cut it. I'm going to need more. You can up it to the unlimited. One of the unlimited plans so it give you a heads up on that.

A meal plan commitment is semester to semester, so each semester you can pick a new meal plan. Commuter students or transfers, or upperclassmen, and you can pick them just as you would any incoming student as a first year or second year student. Some questions that I usually get, some FAQ and maybe you guys have these as well. What happens to your meal swipes, guest swipes and declining balance at the end of the semester? I did just touch upon the declining balance. It will roll over.

Get your meal swipes they will go away at the end of the semester, so if you get that 200 block plan, just think you need to use those 200 meals by the end of the semester or they go away as well as your guest passes. You cannot use your meal plan off campus unless you get the 200 guest plan, 200 block plan and you have that $100 of downtown dining dollars and they will have a a yellow symbol. Basically that says you take we take downtown dining dollars.

It's different than flashcache. So just so you guys know that.

If you have any other questions regarding meal plans, you can email dining at kent.edu or follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. And that's at KSU dining.

We do have a lot of ways, like if you're like I, I don't feel comfortable emailing or calling somebody we want your feedback so we do have a program. It's called text and tell you literally can text us your questions or your comments and feedback within the dining halls. There's the easy QR code, or you can text the code at 55744, put with dining hall you're in and give us your information on the food that you have. If you have any issues. If you have any enjoyments, we just had a monotony breaker.

Yesterday was a Mardi Gras dinner. We're going to have a a Saint Patrick's Day dinner.

On Saint Patrick's Day next week or the 17th, I guess it's not quite next week and and then last week we had a kitchen takeover where we had two local food trucks coming in and we had them take over our kitchen and bring some really great food in honor of Black History Month and Lok supporting local businesses. So we had that. So it's a great way to break up the that dinner every single night and and going out. I do know that some people have.

Allergens Marie sensitive to that and wanted to touch up on that so we do have markers out on everything with either the allergen marker like a W that contains weed or ask that as F that is like shellfish and we do have those color coded. If you're looking for menus you can every day on our story on Instagram we post our breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. They will be going.

Up online, hopefully by the end of March, so that you can see those as well, and then have those when you guys come onto campus in the fall.

But definitely check us out on Instagram if we we do have a dietitian on campus. So if you're looking, you know you're like I. I do have a gluten intolerance and would like to talk to somebody she'd be happy to meet with you and I can give you her information as well. Her name is Sarah and she would be happy to meet with you. And then we also actually just rolled out 'cause it's national Nutrition month in the month of March and we rolled out healthy options. And if you see a leaf on anything, that's one of our healthy options which has like less sodium.

And you know different things like that, so I think that's all I have. I'm going to go here so you can check us out on social media if you can't remember that. Again, it's at KSU dining. And yeah, I'm open up for questions if anybody ask questions.

And a summer we do have some questions coming in here. One of the questions is what are some different vegetarian and vegan options? No, you had mentioned some food allergy options. How might students know about those?

Yes, so we do have some vegan vegetarian.

We do have a vegan vegetarian kiosk. In are all you care to eat facilities. Those are actually marked by a V or VG. Vegan would be vegetarian and VG would be our vegan. We do have like again their circles. One is, I believe dark green and one is a light blue. I can remember off the top of my head and we at the station. You know that those things are always vegan and vegetarian. But then if we do have something at a different station that is that.

They'll put up that placard that says they're vegan or vegetarian, so we do have the two.

Two locations and are all you care to eat facilities, but then we also have options in our markets.

You know, we also have things in our quick grab and go locations, so you know, definitely check those out. We're constantly expanding our menu. We do have. We are self operated so we have a senior executive chef on campus who writes all of our menus and we're really excited to have him on board and we continue to expand all of those offerings as well.

Awesome, and so another question that kind of goes without of expanding options is if a student did have a suggestion, what's the best way for them to report that?

Yeah, so we actually you can do it in so many different ways, so I'm going to give it to you. All the text and tell like I mentioned, if you're on campus and you think Oh my gosh like it will be great if well here I'll give you this example. Today we just got one that said can you can we have cheesecake? Yeah, let's see what we can do.

We didn't realize our students enjoyed cheesecake as much as they did, so you know, they just texted us and said, you know, can we have cheesecake? And one said, can we pound cake so you know, definitely through our text and tell system. But if you have something a little bit more in depth, you can email us at dining at kent.edu and we'll get that as well. And then also through social media if it's a longer request or something that you're very passionate about, I suggest you email, but if it's something quick like.

Do you want pound cake? Definitely text and tell us or put it in DM or something.

Awesome and then we did have a question about perhaps maybe if students want to cook their own food. Are there locations on campus like a community kitchen? Can they have air fryers in their room? Maybe if a student wants to do that, or grocery options.

So you cannot have an air fryer in your room. You cannot have anything with an open flame or something that has oil. Anything that could burn your room down. So yeah, you cannot have an air fryer in your room. There are community kitchens, but think of that, you're going to have a whole floor using one kitchen, so I definitely you would not be able to cook all of your meals with in there, but you could probably cook something small.

If you wanted to, I do know that rooms do have microwaves, so like microwaveable dinners thanks to that extent absolutely. And we do have two markets on campus. I'm think of them like I said, like a sheets or.

Or like a quick like a 711 something to that extent where you could go in and grab some quick you know like soups and sandwiches just you know quick quick things to go and you can use your declining balance for all of that so.

Hopefully that answered that question, and if not, let us know and I'll expand on that more.

Yeah, and then we did have questions about so food options that maybe some of these all you care to eat. Places. Are there options for different ethnic cultural choices based off food like your Asian, Italian, Mexican food or anything in above? Give us an idea of that.

So when you go into the all you care to eat facility. Each station depends on on which one you're going in, and I'm going to just kind of walk through East way through my head to let you know. So when you walk in, you'll have your gluten solutions, which is our gluten friendly station. We cannot call it gluten free because we do have a bakery within the building, but it is made in its own gluten free kitchen, which is right there and you can watch them make their food. So just to give you a heads up on that clarification because I do know some people.

I get concerned when we say gluten friendly and it's just because there is a bakery with on the process. Then we have a vegan station we also have.

Let's see here on action station so it changes from stir fry to omelet, make your own omelet. We have a pizza station with a wood burning pizza stove. We have grill which is your hamburgers. Chicken breast sandwiches, things like that as well as like a beyond burger or vegetarian burger of sorts. Whatever is in supply and then we have a home station which is just like down home. Good food. I always say, like meatloaf mashed potatoes, that kind of thing we have.

A our bakery which is like kind of the back of our building for our shirts and bagels. We have a coffee bar. Then we have a full fledged salad bar.

As well as soups in the morning, it's got like hot hot wells such as gritzer.

Oatmeal stuff like that and then we also have sandwiches there and then we have one. It's called transformation Station and I believe today was a Taco bar. Yesterday was a.

Trying to think what was on there 'cause I went and took pictures of it. We had Mac and Cheese Bar so we do have different things but if you have a concern if you are like like halal we are not halal certified so we'll definitely you know talk to you more in depth about that. If if that is a lifestyle that you do lead we can definitely expand more on that night. I would advise you to email dining at kent.edu to to go a little bit further into that.

Yeah, and then summer we do have someone who like when they go into their flashlight checklist. So you'll that are admitted students in your flashlight checklist. There are your next steps for enrollment. One of them is selected dining plan for that. If they have questions on perhaps maybe it didn't go through or they want to make sure that their selections did go through, who would they contact? You would be best.

Absolutely, so I will tell you the Flash card office can help you with that and just flash card at kent.edu if you just want to make sure or dining at kent.edu and somebody can find that out for you. They did just turn them on last week for incoming students. So if you've tried and you're like, Oh my gosh, I tried and I couldn't get all get any of the meal plans that I was looking for you. You should be able to now so they finished turning them all on a Monday because I did just ask about that.

Because those questions have been coming in, they were. They turned them on. They were going to turn them all on March 1st and I was like no can you turn them on sooner because everybody is trying to go through their checklist so so they they should be on. But if you do still have questions, please either email flash card at kent.edu if you want to just confirm what you have or dining at kent.edu. Also pricing for meal plans we don't pay anything on our presentations because we have. It's what's called cohort pricing and.

And it has. It's all on our. It's on our website, so you can actually go onto our website and see. Click on, you know.

What cohort urine? So the Co cohort would be whatever year you're you're starting college, so yours would you know if you're going to start in the fall it be cohort 2022? That is the price that you will pay until you leave the university. So even if there's food cost increase, just you know.

Whatever the increase, maybe that is the price that you will pay until you leave the university, so you're locked into that price and so just to kind of give you a heads up. But you can go right onto our website and see pricing, but every year is different, so that's why we don't typically put a lot of pricing on presentations and stuff like that. Depending on what year you start at the university. So what cohort urine?

Yeah, and then for anybody else, some of the things we've been talking about that have those websites. So for instance, that really awesome PDF that summer had display that showed those different locations somewhere about meal plans, meal, exchange, semester hours, dining contact information. If you switch over into the chat section. I've been posting some different links for y'all in there and that we've kind of been talking about as we go along with that one other question that we do have in here is so you have the all you care to eat.

D Hub and East way. Do they run different menus?

They should, yeah, absolutely. They sure do. So they what you would eat at die today is probably not what you're going to eat tomorrow. Now today is a little different. I'm not gonna lie because it is Ash Wednesday so we did add a little bit more fish to our menus. For those that observe Ash Wednesday. So I will say that but for the most part, if you see a Mardi Gras dinner at die, that's not what's going to be at eastway. Eastway will have a completely different menu, so.

Yeah, if you don't like what you see a DI, check out East Ways Menu and that's what's great about us. Posting them on Instagram. You can kind of plan your day like well, I'm really in the mood for.

Falafel, you know and or no, that just doesn't sound like it's great for me or one of my favorites is this, and I'm not vegan, but I enjoy this vegan mushroom soup they have, so I will check out the menu to see where I can find that, and I will either walk to die for lunch or I'll walk to eastway for lunch when they have it because it is one of my favorites. So menus are completely different different days.

Awesome and then we got a few more questions as we reach our time for that. We do have a question about so different things that are available to students in the Community kitchen. You mentioned things that they're equipped with. Could you go over that one more time that the community kitchens are equipped with and then in their room we said no air fryers, so I'm assuming toasters are also a no go in your room.

Yeah, Yep, basically we don't want anything burning in your room, so yeah, none of that. But you can go to our housing website too. And and that's part of the what can I bring for that community? Kitchens within your residence halls? It's just a very bare bones and kitchen. So like I said, don't don't expect to be making full fledged meals on there. Also think whatever you make, you have to clean up very very basic elements.

That go in there, you know. And who knows how well your fellow classmates are going to resident hall mates are going to take care of those things, so I think on that respect as well, we hope that everybody will be respectful to those things, but we cannot guarantee that so, but it's basic. One refrigerator, one stove, you know so well, microwave. So yeah, there's not a whole lot of amenities to that one, but you are more than welcome to use them.

If you'd like it to use those as well.

And I personally am a fan of this question are they? Are there places on campus for dessert items anywhere?

So we do have desserts all over campus. Obviously, if you've been into a Starbucks, you can get any kind of dessert you'd like their their their snowman cookies, and the winter were absolutely delicious. But I mean, everybody has them. I know Metro deli.

Has a big cookie is what it's called and it is phenomenal. So and then our markets have a lot of sweet treats. Things like that, but our dining halls are the big ones with like cakes, Gelato, we have a frozen ice cream machine so definitely check that out. And I didn't mention we do have a food truck and that is on that dining location. It hasn't been out this winter because of its pipes will freeze if it's out and we sure don't want it to freeze. So if you follow us on on social media.

We'll post where that food truck is. You can use a meal exchange and hopefully this spring we'll see it out and about. So when you come in the fall, hopefully we'll see it out and about as well.

In that respect so.

Yeah, and we do have a couple questions for the Instagram for dining somewhere. Posting some of those dining menu and food options. If you could give that again.

Yep, it's right there on your screen, it's at KSU dining and you can go right on there and check that out and they should have today's menus on there if you want to look tomorrow you can see what kind of menus you're on there as well, especially if you have an allergen or something like that. You can kind of see what we have and how we market online and then also like I mentioned, we will have things that will.

On on our website, hopefully starting within a couple weeks, we'll have our menus that you can actually go and look at the whole weeks menu at one snapshot versus day by day, so you can kind of plan your week as well.

Awesome and then we all know that COVID happened. Which staffing and some of those things some of the locations weren't able to be open. So there's a question of kind of going into the fall. What's the projection for potentially all of our locations if they're not already open currently?

That's a great question, so as many of you guys know, COVID did hit hard when it comes to staffing and employment. So if you're looking for a job, we're always looking for people, but one of the things like in the fall.

We were very limited with very limited hours due to our staffing this semester. We actually were able to extend hours at our Starbucks in the library and open up our other Starbucks and so that was huge. We extended hours in our hub.

In the student center, the Metro Deli as well as Rosie's we actually.

Excuse me, opened up, we opened up 11 now where before we were opening up at 5:00 PM. So we opened up at 11:00 AM at the market area and then the grill area. We open up three and our pizza section. We open up at 6:00 and then it goes to 11 AM. As I mentioned. So we opened up.

Summit St Cafe, which is in our rec center that was not open last semester. We are looking hopefully to open up the patio which is kind of like burgers and grilled cheese. Things like that in the hub but that won't be until later this spring or the fall so we do have a couple other locations that we're looking to open up in the fall and we don't have those concrete so I can't share those 'cause I don't honestly know those answers.

But we're still looking to hire people so we can staff all of those locations.

I summoned then we're approaching time, so we got a couple more questions in here and if we don't get to your question, no, that we do want to answer that. I'll also re put in dining and culinary services. Contact information. So if you do have a question that we aren't able to get to tonight, you can reach out to them and they can definitely answer that for you. So we'll we'll do two more questions. One of them is.

Delivery is not an option.

OK.

It is not. Delivery is not an option, though I will tell you we do have. We are partnering with Grubhub and we should see that here in the near future. So you can order ahead and then walk there. But Grubhub will not deliver to you. So no delivery on campus.

Awesome and then another question that we have is so say maybe a student has used all of their declining balances or swipes or things like that. Do all of our dining locations take other forms of payment?

Absolutely, that's a great question. I should have touched on that. We do some of our places do not take cash, so the hub is the only in the student center is the only place that takes cash, but everybody else takes flash cash. You can add more declining balance at anytime.

Or we take credit cards so you know, that's that's an easy way to pay as well. But I always tell students add more flash cash or declining balance since it keeps rolling over and rolling over. Then you don't have to carry a debit card or anything like that. You just take that one card with you. What's great is if you do have flash cash and that you want to go to Acme outside of campus and use that or CVS what? What's nice is that you can add that on there if you have prescriptions, you need to pick up, but.

That will continue to roll over, but just add that on compared to carrying all these cards and being afraid you're going to lose it, so you know definitely take take advantage of that instead of keeping track of more than one card.

I think we have time to squeeze in one last question again, I put in the chat, dining services, contact information. If we weren't able to get to your question, but this last one is how would you designate how you're paying with your flash card, for instance, whether you want to use your ticketing balance or the meal exchange or the swipe.

So depending on our system is that smart y'all. So that's that's the only way I can describe it. So if you're at all you care to eat facility, it's gonna take a meal off. They will ask you at like Rosie's or at Hippychick in Orwell. Hippie Chicken is A and Rosie is actually is a touch touch screen ordering so you have to put in there if you want to use a meal exchange or not. If it's at Metro Deli they will ask you do you want this to be a meal exchange?

So, but our system will just keep taking that off. And what will happen is it will take off your declining balance and then your flash cache. So if you're on campus and you're eating and you have both of those pools of money on there, it will take from the declining balance first, because it knows that it's on campus food. The system is just that smart, and that's all I can really tell you.

Awesome, well thank you all so much for joining us here this evening for our session on university culinary and dining services. Hopefully you got a lot of good information. Thank you so much for the questions. Again, if there were any questions we weren't able to get to or you go to sleep tonight and you're thinking about food so you wake up thinking about food, definitely contact dining services so that way they could help answer those for you. But we wanna say thank you all for joining us tonight summer. Any last closing remarks that you might have for our students?

Not really, except for I can always find something to eat on campus if I don't like what's being served at eastway, I'll go to die if I don't like what's there then I'll go to Einstein like there's always an option and it doesn't matter if I have time to sit down or if I'm on the go as an employee there.

You just need to be creative with your choices and you know and enjoy all the different things that you can eat while you're there on campus, you just have to walk there. That's no delivery, but that's that's it.

I said, well, thank you all so much for joining us. We hope you have a good rest of the evening stay safe and hopefully we'll see you here in the fall. So thank y'all. Have a good night.