The many summer camps and groups at the University of Idaho present new challenges for dining services and its employees. Photo by Jazmin Alatorre
By Anne-Maria Carmona-deVille — JAMM Multicultural Journalism Camp
Bob’s cafeteria offers many options of food throughout the school year, however over the summer many camps and people have an influence on the types of meals that are prepared.
Service manager at Bob’s, Megan Vanzanten, said the number of customers during the school year are more consistent than in the summer because the summer groups attending Bob’s for their meals are more based on numbers rather than an average amount of students or staff members.
These numbers include different sports teams.
“Each station is set up to meet the needs of the football teams,” said Vanzanten. “There will be more pizza and grilled food for them, but when the ODP [Olympic Development Program] girls’ teams come they will want to eat more pasta and sandwiches.”
Bob’s is a well-rounded place in the sense that they have applicants and employees of different backgrounds there to service the needs of everyone, Vanzanten said.
She said they don’t target certain ethnicities when it comes to the specific food they make, but more so the groups of people or individuals who fit specific dietary needs.
The camp’s coordinators inform Vanzanten and her team about certain people who have dietary restrictions.
“Food is already available for these people’s needs,” said Vanzanten.
She doesn’t need to order different food items in advance because the staff is prepared for these situations.
“One girl in your group [multicultural journalism workshop] is a raw vegan so we set up around that need by putting out more broccoli and carrots,” said Vanzanten.
Some crazy things have been made over the years such as, a walnut burger for a vegetarian or lamb stew, but it seemed that students didn’t’ really want to try new things, said Vanzanten. She is also shocked people in the summer haven’t ate cereal that much.
“Kids eat what reminds them of home, and that usually is cereal,” she said.
Some of the other different foods she has seen were dessert pizzas. “Captain Crunch pizza was one of the weirdest things I’ve seen,” said Vanzanten.
Many people come to Bob’s to have a variety of different food choices.
Ramiro Mora, one of the staff members for Silver Valley’s Upward Bound, said his favorite summer food choice was a chicken sandwich.
During the week he noticed the different amounts of food while different camps ate at Bob’s.
“Now that the football players are gone there are just a lot more places to sit and it’s not that smelly,” said Ramiro.
Though Bob’s has a pretty set schedule during the school year, the varying summer schedule is managed well by the hard-working staff.
