Last year, The University Of Detroit Jesuit was with the well-known company, Quest Food. The company received numerous complaints from students who had grievances about price, quality, and portion size. So, with the help of Dr. Smith, Mr. Hilden, the Student Senate, and more staff members that I am not aware of, were able to find a new food provider, Cass Catering. I was able to attend one of the meetings, being apart from the Senate. This meeting was essentially an opportunity for the Senate to speak for the students demanding that we see a bigger change from Quest Foods.
The demands included cheaper, higher quality foods, along with larger portions. Cass Catering agreed and said they would meet these demands during the upcoming school year. So, U of D finalized the agreement and got themselves into a five-year contract with Cass Catering. One thing the faculty did miss was the waiver that states that the school is not able to bring in outside food, meaning catered from other places. From now on, all food services that come into the school must be catered for directly by Cass. The kinks are still being worked out, but I would say this has been the largest flaw with the Cass Catering service so far.
Aside from that flaw, Cass has added some nice new features to the cafeteria as they have changed the appearance and the format of the entire room. They have added a slushy machine to the snack shack along with a popcorn machine. The appearance is also homey and cozy as they have added nice decorations from all of U of D’s past with jerseys, stickers, helmets, and more. The cafeteria food has been redesigned as the “Flavor Den” which I think is a simple yet tasteful addition to the cafeteria food service, and the school in general. The lunch line is also much more organized as both sides are now equally distributed with all items on both sides to avoid so much chaos and imbalance in the lines. The new workers are very kind and a nice little addition to the staff. They do not undersell when giving a good amount of food to each student.
Food quantity is something that I have noticed to be better than most of the other demands that we as the students had for the new lunch system. The new specials that are included are usually successful. The nachos always do wonderful, as the entire idea of Taco Tuesday, is very popular for the school and always has been. From what I have heard from my entire lunch table, they like the new assortments of food that Cass is trying to incorporate into their daily specials. The readymade sandwich bar is also another hit because they are sandwiches that we don’t typically see. The pizza also has increased in both portion sizes and overall taste as they have changed that as well along with how it has been maintained. The fries’ overall taste and quality have gone up and I can tell that there is also more effort into maintaining that as well.
Overall, I think that Cass has done a significantly better job at maintaining and making brand-new items and foods for the entire student and faculty population to enjoy. But this is just my opinion, let’s hear what others have to say about the food this year. Senior Brody Rukenbrod claims that it is “a major upgrade from last year’s food”. Junior Jack Fritz claims that he can “definitely see the difference in the quality and quantity of food”. These two quotes alone prove that people can see a difference in both the quality and quantity of Cass Catering. It is especially helpful knowing that the mission of the food company is to put proper time into making, preparing, and serving the food. Even other people can see that Cass is doing something significantly different from what Quest Foods did in the years prior. Cass has satisfied most of the demands and requests by the student body and has made some extra changes to show that they are better than Quest, and based on who I asked I’m not the only one who feels this way.
