This University of Michigan dining hall serves 8K meals a day
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - With its size and student population, the University of Michigan is accustomed to operating on a large scale.
Its South Quad dining hall is its largest residential dining operation and serves up to 8,000 meals each day.
Renovated 10 years ago, the dining hall looks more like a modern food court in a big city than a dorm cafeteria.
One floor below the dining area is a large prep kitchen, walk-in refrigerators and freezers, as well as loading docks.
On average, MDining purchases the following amounts of items each week:
- 6,083 pounds of liquid eggs
- 2,079 pounds of plain Greek yogurt
- 1,529 pounds of vanilla Greek yogurt
- 3,250 pounds of French fries
- 1,872 pounds of tofu
- 4,185 pounds of bananas
MDining gets a large amount of its produce from the U-M Campus Farm, which is run by students. It also partners with other farms across Michigan, fisheries and ranchers to source local products.
Campus executive chef Frank Turchan said menus are planned one year out.
The dining hall also accommodates those with food allergies and restrictions.
"We have a kosher kitchen here at South Quad, which has really expanded and educated a lot of our staff and students about what kosher is all about," said Turchan. "But then on the other side, we have halal, which is great because we work with those different proteins, we work with different student groups. We work with them on different holidays throughout the year."
Students said they liked the variety and the quality of the food.
"The quality's always pretty good," said freshman Justin Joseph. "I wasn't expecting that because all the people that go to college dining halls, they're all like, 'Oh my God, I hate the food here. It's so bad. I'm going to lose so much weight.' But, I've been enjoying the food every day here."
Freshman Dana Odums said her favorite part of the experience is eating food that reminds her of home.
"When I miss home, most of the time, South Hall dining has something homey and comfortable that I can eat that just reminds me of home," she said.
What may surprise people is that this dining hall isn't just for students and staff.
"It's actually open to the public," said Folk. "It is designed for the students, but we do have people walk in and dine."
Chef Turchan said he enjoys being introduced to diverse cuisines through U-M students.
"I have new customers every year," he said. "(The) freshmen class comes in here. They have new ideas, fresh ideas. Obviously, with social media, they have new, crazy things that they're picking up globally that challenge myself and the chef team, so it's great."