Photo via St. Lawrence University
Following every semester, Dining Services sends out surveys to students and staff to collect feedback about their services. Over the summer they analyze these results and come up with ways to improve their current programs. As SLU students, we are very privileged to have such great food options that come from the lo-cal community. St. Lawrence has many close connections with local businesses including the North Country Grown Cooperative, Potsdam Food Coop, and River Rat Cheese Company. The North Country Grown Cooperative delivers locally produced goods to colleges, restaurants, and other regional institutions in the North Country. Some of the local products that are offered here at SLU are maple syrup, milk, apple cider, spring water, local produce in season, and organic fair trade coffee. These items can be found across cam-pus at each of the dining facilities North Star Café (Pub), Dana Dining Hall, Grab and Go at Johnson Hall, Time-Out Café, and Spartacus Café.
Many of the changes that Dining Services has initiated can be found at the Pub, and the details about these items can be found below.
The Pub is now serving Father Sam’s Wraps in four different flavors: white, 100% whole wheat, pesto garlic herb (nut free), and Jalapeño cheddar. These wraps are produced in the Buffalo area of New York and are a common food of choice at the pub for wraps or quesadillas.
Students have already expressed much joy in this change as they are enjoying the new wrap flavors pointing out that they are both delicious and a bonus that they are produced in New York.
Possibly the biggest change at the Pub is the way quesadillas are made. Instead of making the quesadillas with two tortilla wraps, like they have in the past, the Pub now make quesadillas with single wrap that is essentially folded in half.
A flyer in the pub says, “we have revamped the recipes to give you the same amount of filling stuffed into one 12” tortilla shell.” Students have al-ways had mixed feelings about the changes to quesadillas at the Pub, as the item is a fan favorite among the student body. In the past, many students would not order quesadillas because they were too big, while others ordered them because they liked the large size. Now students are upset that the quesadillas are too small or fall apart too easily, while others are quite content with the size.
“The quesadilla recipe needs to be revamped. I think that the cheese to filling (veggie & meat) ratio has some kinks. I believe that there needs to be more cheese,” noted Sonja Jensen ’19. She describes the cheese in the quesadilla as glue that holds everything together. When you add twice as many veggies to half the surface area, there needs to be some-thing holding everything together. If they put a little more cheese in the quesadilla, she believes that this problem will be solved.
Many other students though have given the changes positive reviews.
“I really like the smaller sizes,” said Lexie Haehl ‘17. “It feels like a more reasonable meal now, as it wasn’t before.”
Additional changes include nut free pesto, a new pizza dough recipe, a new large-sized pizza at 16 inches, and a daily rotating pizza menu consisting of cheese, pepperoni and cheese, plus two other flavors each day. The Pub has also altered the flavor of black bean burgers to a spicy chipotle burger made from whole kernel corn, tomatoes, and mild green chili peppers