What You are Thinking...
And What We are Saying.
Notice of Abnormal Dining Dollar Activity
On November 15, 2010 the Dining Services Point of Sale (POS) system downloaded a large batch of logged transactions from the registers in all Dining and Culinary Service locations.
The POS system logs transactions when the campus network or the server is down. When in normal operating mode the logged transactions are scheduled to download to the server once the server comes back on line. Those transactions would then be debited from student’s Dining Dollars account. This function was not operating properly, so student accounts were not debited for purchases while the network or server was down.
Dining Services is investigating the chain of events that led to a batch download of logged transactions to his the server the morning of November 15, 2010. These transactions occurred over a long time period but were not properly debited from student’s accounts. Many students noticed a decrease in Dining Dollars as this batch of logged transactions hit the server. We know that students monitor their balance and the recent download has caught many by surprise. We are working hard to review all transactions and student Dining Dollar history. Dining and Culinary Services will credit accounts for all logged charges transferred on November 15, 2010. We expect to have this completed by the close of the business day.
______________________
9/12/2009—Commons
The crepes are amazing! (except today there was no Nutella) :-( Please keep them coming! Yum! Thanks.
We like them too. Sorry about the nutella, we are trying to find a more reliable source. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/12/2009 Commons
This is a strange question, I realize, but I thought I'd ask anyways.
I was a student at PLU a few years ago, and when I ate at the UC, I loved the pecan pie that you would occasionally serve. What was the brand of that pecan pie? Or the store that you bought them at? I just thought it was really good, and I've been craving it lately.
Kara,
I checked with our production manager. If you're talking about before the new, remodeled UC — it was just a basic store-bought pecan pie. Sorry, but she couldn't recall the exact brand. If it was the pecan bars in the UC, that's something that our baker, Erica made.
Hope that helps! ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/13/2009 Commons
Crepes are awesome! They should be at every brunch. :-)
Good News!!! They will be at every brunch. We are working now to get some new recipes to vary the type of crepe we are serving. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/14/2009 Commons, Dinner
Hot dog & hamburgers are not cross cultural. This is a disappointing occurance because there are supposed to be 4 options for an entre but tonight there were only 3 in my opinion because the "Crave" station was taking up two in theory.
Also, rice should always be available because it is cheap & easy to make.
Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite. We will continue to monitor this addition to the menu to see if it is popular with the students. I do agree that there should always be rice available. If the rice isn't on Cross Cultures it can be found in the hot wells at the salad bar. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/16/2009 Commons, Dinner—Emma Struss
Dear Dining Services,
I have been disappointed with the vegetarian options over the last three nights. Sunday night the options were to have a "veggie hot dog" or pizza. There are simple things that could have been done to make available more options. One thing that I would have especially liked was offering a vegetarian pasta sauce along with the meat option. Monday night, the same thing happened where vegetarians could only consume a "veggie" burger or cheese pizza. I understand that most of the students you serve to do eat meat and therefore there are more options for them. However, when they have the choice to (Sunday night for example) 1. eat pasta with meat sauce and meat pizza from Aglio 2. chicken breasts from the Salad Bar 3. hot dogs from Cross Cultures 4. two meat choices from Crave when I can only eat one type of pizza or a food that resembles meat, I feel my needs are not being met. Lastly I would like to bring up the fact that last night (9-15-09) I found a chunk of sausage like meat in my pasta sauce. Not only did I look at the sign to see that the sauce was vegetarian but I even re-confirmed with the server that it was “meat free”. Although this was the only piece of meat I found in my meal, I was personally offended. If a food item is labeled and confirmed verbally to be meat free, then measures need to be taken to insure it is. Accidents do happen, but this was a situation that did not need to if the correct steps were taken. If you would like to further discuss some of the issues I would be happy to give more insight. Thanks for your time. -Emma Struss
Emma, I appologize for the meat you found in your tomato sauce. We are looking into the reasons that this happened and insuring that it will not happen again—we have added a non-meat sauce every night there is a meat sauce option. We are also continuing to add vegitarian options to our menu. This is an important segment of our service and it is becoming more important daily. We would love to here more suggestions of items you would like to see. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/20/2009 Commons
I was just wondering what happened to the italian dressing, I liked it alot! P.S. Those french dip sandwiches on friday were the bomb!
Audrey,
Hey, thanks for writing in. Glad to hear that you liked the french dips—I also heard from other people they were good!
Wendy has been looking for the Italian dressing all morning, thanks for letting us know it wasn't out there. We actually don't seem to have any in the store room & the container has gone missing. We'll get it ordered this week and get it back out there as soon as we can. Sorry that you haven't had any.
Thanks again & have a great day! ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/22/2009 Commons—Caitlyn Jackson
Hamburgers and hotdogs are not cross cultural. also the vegetarian beef like meal at lunch today tasted to much like beef. most vegetarians do not like the taste of meat. where is the tofu?
Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite and we are continuing to monitor this addition to the menu, make alterations as we go and see how it is faring. We try to keep in mind that we have a wide variety of people eating with us and have added the meat analogues to satisfy more people. Many of those foods appeal to people who are making the transition to the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, people who are watching their meat intake for health reasons and other people for other reasons. Tofu is always available on the salad bar, and at dinner rice is always available in the center steam well—add some of our seasonal veggies from Crave and you have a nice meal. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/22/2009 Commons—Reggie Glaspie
I am disappointed in the quantity of food i was given. for $4.25 i got some krinkle fries and maybe 15 pieces of small popcorn chicken. i feel like it's a rip off to pay so much for so little. on top of this i try and get pizza but you guys always have these fancy pizzas whern really college students just want pepperoni pizza, i think you guys should cater to the average college student. with respect.
We cater to a wide variety of customers and unfortunately not everything will appeal to everyone. We continue to monitor sales of our various offerings to insure that we are following the students taste. We will look into the portion size of the Popcorn Chicken to make sure we are offering good value for price paid. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/22/2009 Commons—Sara
Hotdogs & hamburgers are NOT crosscultural
Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite. We will continue to monitor this addition to the menu to see if it is popular with the students. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/25/2009 Commons, Lunch—Genevieve Williams
Hello,
I bought a container of yogurt in the Commons today and discovered after opening it back in my office that its expiration date was September 18th.
Thought you'd like to know.
Genevieve Williams
Genevieve,
Thanks for writing in, I'm so sorry that you got an expired product. I've passed your message on to the management staff in The Commons and they've made sure to go through & check the expiration dates on the products today. Also to remind their workers that the dates need to be checked on a regular basis.
I'm sending you a coupon for a free meal in The Commons, I hope that will help to make up for our mistake. Once again, thanks so much for letting us know.
Have a great day. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/30/2009 Commons—Lindsey Hurt
Everytime i get chicken, it is pink and nasty. it has been consistently pink everytime i get it.
I can't explain why the chicken would be pink. We are using natural hormone free chicken that does not contain a whitening agent which might account for some of the color. We cook the chicken to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees. We will figure out why this is happening. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/30/2009 Commons—Nigel
the hamburgers were terrible, they need to be grilled again like last year. Plus there needs to be something from another culture at cross cultures. -terrible.
Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite. We will continue to monitor this addition to the menu to see if it is popular with the students.~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/30/2009 Commons—Ryan Phillips
the pho was great. beef with broccoli was my favorite meal here. i would like to see it more often. you always do a great job, thanks!
Thanks for the encouragement.~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/8/2009 Commons
I have now had 2 bad experiences with a particular student worker in the UC. he works at Cross Cultures during the noon lunch hour. The first time, I was trying to order & he saw a friend come in whom he started to talk to, completely ingnoring me & not hemping me with my order. Even the other students at the sandwich station noticed & shook their heads at him. today, 2 of my colleagues & I went to the Cross cultures station where this student was once again serving. He displayed an extremely negative attitude, seeming almost mad that we were there. He also left the outside of our to-go boxes extremely dirty with sauce, causing us to get it all over our hands & clothes. Most of the people working in the Dining Commons are very pleasant & helpful. It is because I have now had two different negative encounters with this student's customer service that I feel a comment must be made. Thanks for listening.
I appologize for your experience. This kind of customer service is unacceptable and we will take care of it. Thank you. -~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/12/2009 Commons—Amy Heinz
I would like to see whole wheat crust for pizza's.
We are looking for a quality whole wheat crust. Stay tuned for more information. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/13/2009 Commons —Alexandra Lampert
Hello. This is the first time I have had to contact you regarding the Commons. I was at Cross Cultures and there was a young woman there who seems new. She didn't have a name tag. She is friendly, but very slow and very skimpy on the portions. (I got less than a scoop full of the tofu terriyaki.) I just thought I would let you know.
I appologize for your experience. We strive for quality and consistance. We will take care of this problem. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/15/2009 commons—Luke Latiner
i would like to nominate Justin Ross for employee of the month for his excellent managment.
Thanks for the encouragement. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10.1.09 Commons, Dinner—Nigel
The buns at Aglio were amazing! i want grilled hamburgers at dinner again please. Thank you.
I am glad that you enjoyed the buns at Aglio. Keep your eye open at Cross Cultures, we'll get some grillin' goin' on for you! ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10.1.09 commons
there was no chocolate milk!
I appologize. We try to have enough milk so we wont run out but unfortunately sometimes we are unable to keep up. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10.4.09 commons
the cross culture station should be ensured for serving food from non-american cultures. no hamburgers and hot dogs. those foods can be served at crave.
Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite. We will continue to monitor this addition to the menu to see if it is popular with the students. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/18/2009 commons—Lucifer (that's what you will call me if you don't fix my problem)
you suck! cross cultures should not have flacid beef hot dogs. the USA is not a cross culture. unless you imported these hotdogs from russia don't let me see them again.
Lucifer, Americana is a culture even if it is not my favorite. We are addressing the cooking method for the hot dogs. We will continue to monitor this addition to the menu to see if it is popular with the students. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
10/12/2009 Commons, Dinner—Nigel
Lou was very professional. He provided me with superior service. very helpful. Thanks for the encouragement. ~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/21/2009 Kelley Café—Whitney Grimm
the server was wonderful! i cannot remember the last time i had such great service at a PLU restaurant.
Whitney, thanks so much for the positive feedback! I'll be sure to pass it on to the staff. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/11/2009 OMM
Please get Capri Suns and Goldfish :-)
Thanks for the idea we will try to get them in for you. ~Linda Nyland, Retail Operations Manager
______________________
9/10/2009 TBC —Katie
Dear Tahoma Bakery; I really miss made to order sandwiches. I feel that their absence is detrimental to my success at PLU. Please bring them back. Thanks, A Concerned Student
We have most of the sandwiches that we have had in the past, they are just not made on site. If there is a sandwich you are missing let us know and we will try to have it on hand for you. ~Linda Nyland, Retail Operations Manager
______________________
9/11/2009 TBC
The soup, asiago, was cold and not creamy. It should be cooked on a stove, rather than in a microwave.
Sorry your soup was cold, we are working on a new system. We have limited electrical capabilities. Please give us another try. ~Linda Nyland, Retail Operations Manager
______________________
9/11/2009 TBC—Kate
There was not a lot of variety in things that were still in and it was only just after 8:00
We are working to have all sandwich there for you during the supper hour. Sorry we didn't have what you wanted. ~Linda Nyland, Retail Operations Manager
______________________
9/11/2009 TBC—Jordan Beck
Meal would have been better had there been ANYTHING that I wanted available. Staff was wonderful. Music sucked.
We are working to have all sandwiches available during super hour. ~Linda Nyland, Retail Operations Manager
______________________
9/11/2009 Web Comment—Kate Burdekin
I find the new format of the online menu to be frustrating. The old grid format was easier and much less time consuming to read. While I do like to see the prices, it's annoying to have to scroll down through the entire week to see each section. Thank you!
Hey Kate,
Thanks for letting me know. Try out this week's menu. I grouped it by day instead of by station—hopefully it's easier. I liked the grid too, but I can't fit all of the info with prices into that & I had a lot of requests for prices.
Thanks again—have a great day. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/16/2009 Web Comment
We have a student that works part time for food services. Last year, if she worked more than 4 hours, she received a meal. This year, we are told, that no longer happens, but now the students are allowed to eat "expired" sandwiches!
How "Expired" are these sandwiches and how do we know they are safe?
Your timely response to this question would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Thank you for writing in with your concern. I'm attaching a copy of our student handbook for you—on page 10 the Meal Policy is stated where "Students are not eligible for a free employee meal before, after or during their shift."
Our outdated food policy is that the sandwiches should stay on the shelf until the end of the day when they expire and at end of that day they should be composted. We will be sure that the policy is reviewed with the Leads at all of our outlets and is properly enforced. We don't want our employees to consume anything that we aren't even serving to our customers.
I hope this answers your concern. If you have anything further, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Thanks & have a great day. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/16/2009 Web Comment—Emma Struss
Dear Dining Services, I have been disappointed with the vegetarian options over the last three nights. Sunday night the options were to have a "veggie hot dog" or pizza. There are simple things that could have been done to make available more options. One thing that I would have especially liked was offering a vegetarian pasta sauce along with the meat option. Monday night, the same thing happened where vegetarians could only consume a "veggie" burger or cheese pizza. I understand that most of the students you serve to do eat meat and therefore there are more options for them. However, when they have the choice to (Sunday night for example) 1. eat pasta with meat sauce and meat pizza from Aglio 2. chicken breasts from the Salad Bar 3. hot dogs from Cross Cultures 4. two meat choices from Crave when I can only eat one type of pizza or a food that resembles meat, I feel my needs are not being met. Lastly I would like to bring up the fact that last night (9-15-09) I found a chunk of sausage like meat in my pasta sauce. Not only did I look at the sign to see that the sauce was vegetarian but I even re-confirmed with the server that it was “meat free”. Although this was the only piece of meat I found in my meal, I was personally offended. If a food item is labeled and confirmed verbally to be meat free, then measures need to be taken to insure it is. Accidents do happen, but this was a situation that did not need to if the correct steps were taken. If you would like to further discuss some of the issues I would be happy to give more insight. Thanks for your time. -Emma Struss
Emma,
Thanks for writing in, we do value the comments we receive from our customers & use them to help us make changes.
I'm sorry about the sausage and the mis-information you received. This week our team made the addition of a plain marinara sauce when appropriate at the Aglio station. I think it would be great to have a meeting with you to discuss your ideas for vegetarian options. Erin McGinnis, director of Dining & Culinary Services, can meet with you next week. Here's some openings in her calendar: Monday 11am—2pm—3pm, Tuesday 10:30am, Wed 11am—1pm—2pm. Please let me know if you're interested in a meeting and what time would work for you and we can set something up.
Once again, thanks for writing in and I hope we can help to make your food experience more enjoyable. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/19/2009 Web Comment—Colette Breshears
Normally I'm quite tolerant of the UC Commons - there are a lot of people that go to PLU, and many of them have dining plans. That many people can be hard to accommodate and make quality food for. My friends and I make all sorts of excuses for you guys, like when there's a worker that doesn't speak enough English to know that I said, "Fish, please" and I get chicken and mashed potatoes, I shrug and assume it's their first day. When I go to the same person the next day and ask them if the dish is spicy and they call the chef over to brokenly repeat my question, I shrug and assume that they're just learning English and will get better quickly. I don't have a problem with hiring Embassy students as workers in the UC. I think it's fantastic that you and your staff will put up with a language barrier to ensure that these students have jobs and income. But where I balk at it strongly is when it directly affects the quality and safety of the food I am eating.
This last week, I missed four days of class because I had a high fever. I went to the Health Center and they told me I had swine flu, so I self-isolated. I became dependent on other people to bring me food and drink. This caused a number of problems:
1. Your "sick student" bags are a good idea, but when I'm not lying comatose in bed, they just aren't very substantial. I liked the Gatorade and the Sierra Mist, and the tomato soup wasn't bad, but if I'm going to be in my room for five consecutive days, I need something more solid, at least every once in a while. Perhaps consider introducing "Feeling Much Better (but still sick) student" bags that have a sandwich, or ramen, or a frozen pizza, or some other healthy small meal type entree (a salad!). I only ordered one of those sick bags - because every other time I either got up and went to the Market myself (asking everyone to sanitize their hands after ringing me up) or sent a friend with a list.
2. When I ask my friends to bring me back something from the UC Commons for dinner, them looking at me sadly and reminding me that it's dinnertime shouldn't happen. There should be some waiver or email that I can send from my germ-ridden room that will allow my best friend to pick me up something warm and bring it home to me in a box. She would even pay for it if she had to - hell, if I can pay for it, it'd be better. What happened to the preparation of a sick tray? I remember that process from back before the UC was remodeled. Now all I get is a motley collection of unripe fruit that my friends smuggled out past the "watchful eye" of whatever UC worker was allowed to bring their laptop to work today.
3. This is the real reason I'm sending this email. The rest of it is me bringing up complaints that I have that I think you can work on, but I normally would either talk to people or let the issues drop. But when my friend goes out to get me a cheeseburger today and brings home the soggy piece of crap that I looked at, it's unacceptable. There's sucking at customer service (getting the wrong foods, not being able lto communicate on a basic level) and then there is all out dangerous food preparation that shows that someone just didn't care. My cheeseburger was a little soggy, yes. That is fine, it was in a box for five minutes, some sogginess is acceptable. The type of sogginess where I can't pick up the bottom part of the bun because it will disintegrate in my fingers is NOT acceptable. It was lukewarm. I can understand that, but this is the kind of lukewarm where it's basically room temperature, so it was lukewarm five minutes ago. The cheese on top of my burger (cheddar), wasn't even melted - and I know that the cheese goes on the patty as you put it on the grill - which means that I got a dripping wet patty straight out of a vat that's been sitting on the grill all day, with a piece of cheese put on top. I don't even care that the lettuce was wilted or that there was half of a slice of tomato instead of decent toppings, but the lack of cooking (sorry, re-cooking) the meat is not kosher food preparation. I don't even have a food handler's card (which I know that the UC workers are supposed to) and I know that if you leave meat (cooked or not) out past a certain time, and it's in a vat at a temperature between 60 degrees and 120, bacteria is going to grow and people are going to get sick. You might ordinarily circumvent this by pointing out that you raise the temperature of the patty past 160 degrees or something by re-grilling it - but that doesn't happen all the time. Or hardly at all. I've stood there in line and watched it happen to my burger countless times. I've never said anything because usually I don't care that much - my immune system is strong enough to fight off all sorts of infections, and I make excuses to myself, like, "They're new" or "It's busy".
This burger that I ordered (through my friend) constituted the first solid food that I'd had in a couple of days (minus a single hot pocket I had yesterday). I looked at it distrustingly, then ate about a third of it anyway - that's about how far I got before I had to stop eating out of disgust. About ten minutes later I went and vomited it all into the toilet. I haven't even been nauseous the last four days. Not a single problem with eating food, and I was getting a lot better. My fever broke yesterday morning, but now I still can't leave my fucking room because I fucking have food poisoning and can't stand up without a wave of nausea and/or running to the bathroom.
When you have a student population riddled with flu (normal or the swine flu variant), small issues like safety of the food supply become huge. Our immune systems are exhausted from fighting off the flu and can't deal with the same substandard shit that they normally can. As a recovering invalid, I need to have solid foods to boost my immune system back to normal - but if those foods are laced with harmful bacteria, I'm not going to get better. I'm hoping that I can stay recovered from the flu while simultaneously voiding my person of everything resembling food for the next day or so.
This email isn't a threat. I'm not going to sue or take legal action or anything. I'm hoping that writing this email will be enough, Dining Services, because you've got a problem you need to solve. You will have hundreds of sick students this fall depending on you for everything they need to get better. How many will you make worse?
Colette,
Thanks for writing in, we do find it very valuable to hear from you about things we're doing right and wrong.
Today we'll put some additional items on the Sick Meal order—Smucker's Uncrustables, bagel & cream cheese, and Cup o' Noodles. Hopefully these will be some additions that will segue into the time when someone sick starts to feel up to eating more solid food. We also have the Meals Away option to take the place of your all-you-care-to-eat meal, it does require 24 hours notice, but when you're out for 4-5 days you have the opportunity to request that and still have a friend pick it up for you. Sick Meals are a program in progress and we're happy to change it up as we go to make it work for all of the people we're expecting to see using it in the next few months.
I've also forwarded your email to Wendy, our Operations Manger, and she's going to talk with our Sous Chefs and address your other comments.
Thanks again and I hope you have a great day, ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
Colette, here's a review of our hamburger process:
* Frozen, fully cooked burgers go on the grill.
* Burgers are cooked to an internal temperature of 165
* Burgers are held in au jus at between 165-180
* Burgers are taken from the au jus and put back on the grill to order
* Burgers are held on the grill to dry the surface and melt cheese
* Burgers are placed on the bun.
* At this point the burgers are at a minimum temp of 155-160. Hot holding temperature is 140
~Erick Swenson, Sous Chef
______________________
9/20/2009 Web Comment—Jake Hinton
Hello,
I signed up for the wrong meal plan. I signed up for the Lute Choice, and I should’ve signed up for the Kreidler Plan. I have used dining dollars, and only one all you can eat meal that I thought I was paying for with dining dollars… How can I change this?
Jake,
You can change your meal plan on our webpage here:
http://www.plu.edu/~dining/mealplans.htm
Choose "Optional Meal Plan" from the right side under Quicklinks. Fill out the form and submit. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks & have a great day. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager
______________________
9/20/2009 Web Comment
Hello,
Last year the Culinary department did a strange food tasting in a small room in the UC for Halloween. They had weird fruits, seafood, soups, and such that people could taste and then someone would tell us a little about it. I was wondering if this was going to happen again this year because my family and I really enjoyed it.
Thank you,
Katie Robertson
Hey Katie,
Yes, we are doing the event again. It is part of our Culinary Adventure Series and is called "Ghoulish Foods". We'll be holding the event on Friday, October 30th at 6pm—it'll be here in the University Center. Hopefully you can make it again!
Thanks & have a great day. ~JJ Stolz, Marketing Manager