 Hi everybody, we are back at breath. So I guess we should start out the tour by mentioning it's close to so many different places. What's your name? Julianna. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, glad to have you back. Gotta get that in there. So we're close to so many places. We have Quiznos here. Quiznos? Great place to eat. We also have Starbucks. You can go here to eat as well as study, which is what I do. Is that what you do? Okay. I love doing that. Bring little study groups, have coffee, maybe catch, get coffee for class. There's a lot of tables out there too, so you could. It's kind of a hot day today. But if it's cooler like in the spring, one could just sit out there and have a cafe experience. And we have the Greek theater over here. The theater behind us. Always different things going on such as the campus. Never know what you're gonna see. There could be performances taking place at the Greek theater. So it's just a nice place to look at. It's very centrally located. Thought I might point out, residence halls here is Gibson. And here is Gregson, yeah. And then we're headed into Brough. Yes. I'll follow you in. Okay. All right, here we go. Which Brough is one of three different dining halls. And you've eaten at all three. Is that right? That's correct. So the one we saw earlier in the quad, that was a Fulbright. Fulbright, yes. One of my favorites, I love it. And then there's the one in Pomfret, which is right down at the bottom of the hill. Yes. We're heading up the stairs. All right. And when would you usually eat here? Would this be for breakfast or lunch or what? Breakfast for lunch. Yeah. Normally. Okay. Those are the main two times that I would come here to eat. So, yeah, it's kind of busy during lunch, but they have good breakfast and good lunch, so, and it's convenient, so. So how do you start the meal process here? What do you have to do? Okay, so basically you walk up, the people here at the counter. Hello. Hi. Hi. And you'll have a meal card. I don't have one on me right now. We'll let you pass this time. Yeah. We'll let you buy it. We'll just hand it to them. Hand it to them. Huh? Scan. I love the imaginary swipe. Can you give me the imaginary swipe again? Good deal. Yes, excellent. Okay. Great. And so then you just do that and then you're free to go in and get whatever you want. Let me introduce the two of you, if you don't mind. You're with Chartwells, right? Yes. Okay. And over here. I'm Kim Johnson and I'm the marketing director with Chartwells. My office is in the Student Union available for questions anytime. Any student has a question about a meal plan or wants to know about a special event. Thanks. Thanks, Kim. And then you'll be joining us as we kind of walk around the campus so we can, yeah. Exactly, I look forward to that. And in fact, having you introduce yourself. I'm Ashley Neek. I am the new campus dietitian. So if you've got any special dining needs, food allergies, or health or wellness concerns, I'm your go-to girl. Excellent. Thank you. All right. So we've come here for a late lunch. Yes. And oh wait, what's this right here? This is the timing is everything. Thing, yeah, can you explain? I just noticed that off to the side. I can certainly explain that. Every year we post, we put these posters out in each of the dining halls to let students know what the off-peak hours or time frame might be for meals. Why would I want to come in an off-peak time? To actually make sure that you get a chair. Right, right. So it's just kind of more comfortable sometimes to come when there's a little elbow room. Sure. Because this campus is large and still growing, there are going to be some times where there's going to be quite a few students in. Sure. This location we feed a little over 4,000 meals a day. 4,000 meals a day in this location. Okay. And is it similar in our other two locations that we have in Comfort and Fulbright and the Quad? Yes. And we will publish posters that look identical to this. In fact, the posters show, like you have a yellow color for brough for Fulbright is the pink and the blue. And so it'll show in half hour increments where the hills and valleys are. Gotcha. And they do vary. You can see they vary by dining hall. They do. So 11.30 a.m., brough is pretty hopping. Right. Exactly. Pretty hopping. All right. Well, great. Well, thank you very much. So let's, let me also say if anybody has any questions, feel free to chime in. We're happy to answer them. But for now, we'll go ahead and walk inside and see what we see as far as things to eat. Now you mentioned, do you have some favorite meals? I do. Let me get a closer to you. Pizza is always a go-to, obviously. Yeah. Let me get a little closer to you so we can hear it. What was that? All over it. Can you hear any of it? No, go ahead. Say it again if you don't mind. Basically, I love the fruit. I just love fruit in general, but we can't break fruit here. I also, pizza is obviously a must. Everyone loves that pizza. But in general, it's just great food and it's a great place to come and enjoy good meals. Well, it looks like there's a lot of different sort of stations. Is that right? Was that what we would call them? Yes, there are different stations. So this area is where most students after leaving the cashier will kind of start. So you have what our associates do behind this area that you really can't see. Let's go a little closer and look at this food. We're doing the actual preparation and then up here I see a menu it looks like. Right, yeah. And you'll see menus in all of the locations but what we do what is called batch cooking in our locations and all of our dining halls now. So what you're seeing on the line is actually being prepared by the person that is usually right in front of you. They're actually preparing the food for you instead of cooking big batch of food and keeping them warm. I guess I get people more choices. Exactly. And there's more, there's more chance for customization too so a student can make some special requests so leave the sauce off of that for example. Gotcha. Oh, so don't make it to order to some extent. If it's a stir fry that they're doing they can request no oil be added. Oh. And they can request that we put a lid on it just to steam the vegetables. Nice, nice. So we'll continue on and I guess you would get, you would get your plate here. Is that right? You start with your plate there. Okay. Right there. Uh-huh. It's basically like that and just keep walking around. Yeah. Okay. And silverware I see is just right over here. Good deal, good deal. And yeah. And then we'll follow you. We're gonna walk by the pizza which is always a nice thing. What's the phrase you guys use all you care to eat or? All you care to eat. All you care to eat. So it's all there as much as you want to eat but really all you should eat. So far it's just like the best. Which pizza do you like the best? Green style. Okay. I love peppers though so. Nice. That's my favorite. Great. Well we'll head on down and I guess you would get water and different drinks station here. I got a question for our dietitian. How many glasses of water should we be drinking a day? Bam. Nice. Eight, eight ounce glasses. Okay. It's very for every individual. Absolutely. And here you can get plenty of fluid right here. So. Perfect. I guess we see some of the seating here as we're going along. Great, great. And one thing to mention about the architecture of this building is it's one big circle up here. It seems like. It's very easy. Oh, I see that. I'm sure it's a dessert. Yes. Love-hate relationship with the station. Ha ha ha. So many cookies. It's all the cookies I can't eat. All the cookies are right there. All the cookies you can't eat. Wonderful. Well, do you have one that usually, when you do indulge, do you have one that you like to indulge in? The cookies are great. Uh-huh. But I love ice cream. Nice. Sometimes they have like the special key words you'll have like lemon, tea, cake, and I roll these in. Wonderful. And I think we may have missed it but there's a soft serve ice cream machine right on the other side. I'll serve it. Have you ever used it? I have. Yes. I'll ever use it. I love some soft serve. Ha ha ha. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. So we're about to head into, I guess, uh, well, here's some really healthy choices as well. Right here. This is the fruit you were talking about earlier? Yeah. Okay. There's always fruit here. There's always salad. You always have that option. Yeah. I love it. We're salad options here. And there's really plates in front of every station. So you don't, it's not like a cafeteria you would go on a line. Actually, you just come into the different points where you want. Mm-hmm. Okay. There's a station here, I guess, with some more silverware and drinks, if you want to. And then we're headed into an area we call, what is this called? This is the wellness zone. Tell me about the wellness zone. That sounds like an interesting place. It is. Yeah. Come on. It's actually an area that we use to prepare a lot of food for our students who might have special dining meets. Okay. Food allergies being the big one. Gotcha. So if you come right in, we've got our own separate. I see, okay. So this is, food can be prepared here that isn't part necessarily of the rest of the food stuff. Like there's no chance of cross-contamination or anything like that. Yeah, it significantly reduces the risk of that. I see. Yes. Let me get it on the side. But everything prepared in this area is actually made without glue. Okay. So if you've got celiac disease or you've got a weak allergy or gluten intolerance, this is the area that you'd like to dine in. If you've got other food allergies, this is another area you'd like to dine in as well because we also do made-to-order meals specifically without those ingredients. How would you get a made-to-order meal? Would you just come here and ask them to do it for you here? Or do you do that? Yeah. Okay. So we actually have RFA's here. And those are resident food allergen experts. So they've actually received more training on food allergies and how to manage those in a food service setting. Sure. So you mentioned gluten-free issues. I guess service is all kinds of different food needs. What would be some of the other things? Yeah, everything from lactose intolerance to tree nut allergies to peanut allergies. Yeah. I have a million allergies, honestly. Oh, really? Okay. I'm pretty much allergic to a lot of the top food allergies that people have. And I find it very convenient. I actually did use the station quite a bit when of course it's nice not to have to worry that your food could kind of affect your health. One of the last things you want to be thinking about when you're trying to do well in class is did I eat food that maybe has a peanut in it? Yeah. Great, great. Is there a place that people could either contact you if they need more information about dietary stuff or a place online they should go? That information is actually on our website. And all my email address is actually posted at all of the entrances to the dining halls. Oh, okay. So they can always send me an email or whatever, but it's a-m-e-e-k at uark.edu. Perfect. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, and it sounds like you can definitely avoid gluten if you want to be here as well as a number of other things. All right. Well, let's continue to move on through the rest of the circle. Unless there's anything else you want to say about dietary stuff. You know, don't let this area, even if you can eat gluten or you don't have any food allergies we still encourage you to eat this area also. So we typically got a pre-plated hot item and a cold item like a side salad. And those are already pre-portioned. So- What does that mean, pre-portioned? Pre-portioned, so it's all balanced out. So that way it's controlled. Okay. So it's not up to you. I see, I see. You can get as many of the pre-portioned that you wish, but it's delivered in a way that you have sort of a specific amount that's given to you. Yeah, so you can actually take a look at the actual serving size and say, okay, this is what it's actually supposed to look like. And there's a lot of great space here too. I'll say there's plenty of space whether you have a dietary need or not, you can just come right here. Fantastic, yeah. This is the firm building that's built onto Founders Hall. Okay. So right through that door is Founders Resilience Hall. So if you're from Founders, there you go. Can they come in this way? No, okay. But Founders is right on the other side, so good to be aware of. Fundizations, if they would like to reserve the space for a meeting or to plan an event, if they would like to do that, they can reach out to us. My information is also on our website and the website is dinoncampus.com, backslash, razorbacks. They can reach out to me and we can make sure that this space is reserved for their group. So an RSO, for example. Yes, an RSO. Might wanna have some space to meet and have a meal and talk about their next great thing. Right. And even if students don't have meal plans, they can actually, we can set up a great meal for them and they can sign in and their RSO or their department, whatever department they can be built for a group rate. Isn't that fantastic. And we even have to have a meal plan. Nice, wonderful, okay. A lot of uses for this space. I mean, it's where hungry minds gather, right? Exactly, all right. So we're moving back into the main area where you go around and get the different foods. Please watch your step, it says. Okay. Oh, do we have another menu? Just an example of the menus that you'll find. So you can see from some distance away, what's being offered. Yes. Okay, it's got some Fritos. Yes, very nice. I'm a big fan of Frito pie myself. Yeah, okay. Right there, you get some different things. The grain bowl. This is my favorite. Yeah, you wanna turn it on? Yeah. Our chef man, he actually came up, grain is obviously gonna be the base of it. Vegetables, whatever. What would be the types of grains? Could just be like maybe a rice or some sort of cereal that would be in there? There's grain, quinoa. Quinoa, okay. There's even that quinoa. Can you give me an example of what one of those dishes might be called? I think I had one once, it was like a Cajun-inspired grain bowl or something like that. It was delicious. Yeah, I love the food. Carubol. It's my favorite, yes. And they go Vietnam, whole southern grain bowl that they do with the catfish. Catfish, yeah. That's actually got black eyed peas as one of the vegetable components. Nice. It's really, really good. Fantastic. The grain bowl, be sure and check it out in August. Right. Are there any new restaurants or anything else coming online in August? Actually, funny that you asked, we have actually four new concepts that are coming. Yeah. When I say concept, that would be new restaurant that's coming. And we've got one, that's a local one called Flying Burrito that some of the students may actually be familiar with. It's really popular in the community as well as on the campus. I know a lot of the students are excited about it coming. It's going to be opening in the Union Food Court. Flying Burrito would serve burritos. I would do those. Burritos and tacos and rice balls and it's just a really, it's kind of a simple sort of a Tex-Mex but fun concept, really good and really fresh. Then another concept that is actually opening in the food court is something called Tree Burger. And this is basically a gourmet burger concept. But the neat thing about this concept besides the fact that they're going to do hand-mixed milkshakes in that concept, 5% of the purchases that students make in that concept will actually go to a scholarship fund that Student Affairs is organizing. Paying it forward a little bit. So there's a little of that with that concept. In addition, Rocket Taco in this building and founders on the lower level where there was formerly a Papa John's pizza location, is a street taco concept. So that's a very exciting three different types of meat that you can have in a vegetable or a vegetarian version, all kinds of toppings and great local tortillas as well. Street tacos are usually the smaller ones. Is that right? What you would find, and they're pretty average size but they're like what you would find in a food truck. Gotcha. Basically. That sounds delicious to me. Fantastic. Come on through and we can talk a little bit later about flex maybe and meal trains. So these would be some wraps that we have here. All right. Good deal. I actually have had the wraps. What's that? I actually have had the wraps during August like from the school side so I think they're delicious. Let me just say that and it's a good option if you kind of just want something light too and quick. So I think pointing that out is good. Sure, very quick handheld even. Perfect. Okay. So let me point out some of the seating here. You got a big robe seating and for those of you who may not maybe aren't from the Northwest Arkansas region, I'm going to show you a good view of the Ozark Mountains over here on the corner. And again, this is one kind of big circle. Let's see what we can see. Oh yeah. See if we can point anything out. Now that right there is Humphreys right there. And we have quite a bit of good view down there. So we'll head in and show where you would put your well, actually there's a chalkboard here we can show off too. Oh yeah. And then people write things during the year here. Is that right? Stevens definitely write things. Our own managers and associates will write things. And so there will be quite a conversation going on most of the time. You know, we're in the summertime right now. As you said, there are two chalkboards in front there's a chalkboard in Humphreys as well as in Fulbright. So that's, there's a lot of dialogue. There is I saw it when we were walking in there's one over there on the left. It's actually full of stuff right now. Well, and we really use it to kind of get feedback from the students to find out what they liked or what they want to see more of. Some students come back from, you know, home on holidays and they said, you know what, we have this really great Indian food at, you know, at home. So I might ride it up there and then it ends up over here. It ends up out of the line. That's fantastic. The next week or so you might have something completely unique online. Very good. What a good feedback loop, right? That's awesome. Okay. So here we have the, the end of it where you put your don't have to do much work. You don't even have to click. That's it. It's super easy. Easy as that. So you eat your food and you come here and then you walk out and you get your ice cream to go. Right? Your soft serve ice cream to go. Little cone for ice cream. Fantastic. Okay. Well, let's take some questions and maybe address, you know, flex dollars and meal trades. You feel like speaking to that for us a little bit. So meals, obviously we did the swipe and we came in and that's where you would use your meal. A meal trade is similar to that in that you're using a swipe in a location where what normally during the day is retail. So like the union food court, for example, Monday through Thursday, the union food court opens at 430 and closes at 11 p.m. So a student can rather than use cash debit or their flex dollars to buy a meal, they can get a combo at the open locations in the food court and it's a meal swipe at the cashier. So that's how meal trades work. You can do a meal trade in the morning in Obon Pond Bakery Cafe. And that also is located. Great coffee down there. Great coffee, great pastries, bagels, those kinds of things, salads, sandwiches and soups during the lunchtime. But in the morning, students can do a meal trade there and then they can do an additional trade in the evening at one of the locations on campus. There is something open seven days a week in the evening for meal trades, except for meal trades. Meal trades just kind of give students an opportunity to get a meal a little later. Some students don't like to eat a full meal right away in the evening. They like to eat a smaller meal and then another smaller meal before they go to bed. That allows them to do that plus the flexibility of working around any sort of club beatings that they might have or working with an RSO on an event. And then flex? Flex dollars spend just like cash. They're associated with the student's meal plan. There's a certain number of flex dollars with every plan and the information just like your meals are loaded on your ID card. The flex dollars are also on your ID card. To be spent basically like money. To be spent basically like money. So the chartwell's locations on campus like the Starbucks, the Quiznos, the locations that we mentioned in the Union. Slim chickens? Slim chickens, that's another one, yeah. Okay, fantastic. That's where you use your flex dollars. Meals and flex because they're bundled into your meal plan expire at the end of every semester. And so I guess most students ask, well, how do I keep track of my flex dollars? The easy way to do that is to log into your account and look what you can do. You can set up your account through the ID office and set up your password to be able to look at that. But then any chartwell's cashier can scan your ID at any time and can tell you what your flex dollar amount is or within a given week, how many meals for that week you might have left on your plan to spend. So I can come right over here to that front desk and say, hey, tell me how much flex dollars I have or how many meals I've gotten, they can tell you. That's exactly right. Okay, fantastic. Well, I think we're gonna sign off here in a little bit but are there any questions for us to answer about campus dining? You were mentioning with me earlier, we were talking to me earlier about your very first experience at the university when you ate here. And you didn't know anybody and the first time you sat down, is that right? Yes, okay. I didn't know anyone and I came in expecting it but they let me sit but it wasn't awkward at all, actually. Really? Yeah, it was just very friendly and I was actually really happy for that because it's kind of a way to talk to people and be friends. Everyone's really open, so yeah, it's really friendly and hard. That's nice. You're adopted by a family, your first meal here. Okay, well, thanks everybody for listening and let's turn to more questions. I think we're gonna go ahead and sign off and glad we could tell you about campus dining and thank you and thank you for participating as well. I do have one other thing I'd like to add. If students coming to campus want to work with us, work for Chartwells or work with Chartwells, we have all of the locations that we mentioned on campus and lots of career and job opportunities for campus. We're really flexible and students don't have to get in their car and leave if they would like a job with us. Our career and hiring office is on the first floor and the student union, so we encourage you to come on down if you're interested in a part-time or full-time something. Job opportunities right here. Job opportunities right here. We did have a question come in, Kim asked us, will I get my ID and food cart at orientation? Do you happen to know when they get their food cart? They should get their food cart at orientation if they were here already and did not pick up their ID. They can contact the ID office. They should have their ID card ready and waiting on the student. Okay, so if they didn't pick it up during orientation, they could probably pick it up first day of move-in. Right, exactly. Just make contact with the student card office. Yes, and the card office is located on the fourth floor of the student union. Perfect, okay. Well, thank you everyone. We're gonna go and sign off. Have a good time.