Last week, The Observer polled students with the question, “In which area would you most like to see change from CWU?” Dining was the majority answer, with 31.8% of the responses.
Dining at CWU is always changing, and at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, it underwent major changes impacting students and staff alike. From the conversion of Holmes into an “all you care to enjoy” buffet, to operational hour changes across campus and price increases at all locations, just about every aspect of on-campus Dining was tweaked or altered in some way.
There are a couple of major changes coming to the financial side of Dining in the 2025-2026 academic year, according to Dean Masuccio, director of Dining Services. First is the introduction of a returning resident meal plan, a new, more affordable tier for any returning on-campus residents. Second is a change in quarter to quarter housing and meal plan rates. Instead of having variable rates quarter to quarter, both housing and meal plan rates will be consistent across all quarters, Masuccio said.
In The Observer’s survey, students took issue with lack of healthy food on campus, portion sizes, hours and menus. Across social media, including the student social media platform Fizz CWU, dining photos are frequently featured by students, showcasing inconsistencies and quality issues with food across campus.
Masuccio sat down with The Observer, together with Joe Ritchie, campus executive chef, and Dustin Atkinson, assistant director of Dining Services, to discuss changes in Dining’s past, present and future.
Holmes Dining Room
At the start of the CWU 2024-2025 academic year, Holmes Dining underwent a major change, shifting from a retail location to an “all you care to enjoy” buffet-style operation. This change brought a new menu, new prices and new hours.
CWU student reactions to the change were mixed, with many of those surveyed stating that they enjoy the new menu, and many stating that they miss the old dining space. One survey respondent stated, “I like the new Holmes, I like the food, I just wish it wasn’t so expensive, but I get it. I’m still going to eat there.”
Dean Masuccio spoke about this new model. “One of the things that we launched this current academic year was the reimagining of Holmes Dining into a more traditional dining hall that would be experienced on a university campus,” Masuccio said. “One of the deliverables from the Holmes project was to elevate the quality of product, service, variety, etc.”
Holmes has seen an increase in both traffic and revenue this year, a change Masuccio called “intentional.” One of the ways they increased traffic to Holmes was by limiting hours of other locations, he said.
“Some limiting had to happen because we only have x amount of participation for dinner service. And we have many opportunities across campus from The Village to Northside Commons to this building here,” Masuccio said. “We had to do something. Because if we’re trying to get participation in the [Holmes] area and have everything else available, then it’s not going to be realized.”
Masuccio addressed a few of the other challenges they faced when redesigning the Holmes model. “With Holmes, in order to meet the objectives that we had for the reimagined service model, we had to double down on the efforts for that space,” Masuccio said. “That [Holmes] took up a lot of energy. We won’t deny that. That was one of our biggest initiatives for this year … it’s the recipe creation process, the creation of menus, a four-week cycle for lunch and dinner so that there’s not the same meal served every week or every other week.”
One student responded to the survey with complaints about dining on campus. “As a student here, it is quite annoying when I want bigger portion sizes and actual food,” they said. “However, through the weekdays, my dinner options in Central Marketplace are Lion’s Rock and Fresh Bar. Especially if dinner at Holmes doesn’t seem appetizing that night.”
The Holmes Dining Room also contains a large seating area that was previously open to the public but was limited in entry at the start of this current academic year to Holmes customers only.
Masuccio said that while they have heard student complaints about the lack of accessibility to the space, the solution is not as simple as students might believe.
“It’s an ongoing conversation. We would love it if someone had a better idea than we have right now about how to permit access without creating risk,” such as theft, Masuccio said. “We won’t convert back the food side at all. We believe that’s been received very positively. Students that have participated see the variety, see the quality, see the opportunity to taste many different things … But the seating area is the one that there’s still more to be determined there. So if there’s any student feedback as far as ideas, we’d be happy to hear them.”
When looking at where to focus their efforts, Masuccio stated that they typically look into the areas of Dining that are not performing well and focus a majority of their efforts into those areas.
“That was kind of the one of the drivers behind the Holmes changes,” Masuccio said. “So it’s been good to see that increased participation.”
The 2024-2025 academic year Dining changes were met with pushback from some students and, according to The Observer’s polling, have led to a “want” for change. When The Observer went to the SURC for a follow-up on the survey, a majority of the students that were asked about Dining expressed “disappointment” with their current options. Masuccio spoke about this pushback and how Dining Services approaches making changes.
“We continuously are looking at ways to change and evolve with the needs of our campus,” Masuccio said. “Making mistakes is okay. That’s what we tell our students all the time … I’m not saying we’ve made a mistake. We made mistakes in the past. I don’t think Holmes is one of them.”
“Whenever you make changes, there’s always going to be some pushback,” Masuccio said. “And so we always look to receive feedback and take that into consideration.”
Training, Consistency and Turnover
Consistency across all of CWU’s dining options is something that Ritchie, campus executive chef, described as “ongoing.” According to Ritchie, CWU has a very diverse workforce, and part of finding consistency is looking at its policies and training methods.
Ritchie also claimed that consistency is not an issue exclusive to CWU. “Food quality and inconsistency and stuff, those are things that I’ve worked with or struggled with over my entire career that I’ve had at any location from a fine dining restaurant to a luxury hotel to a large-scale dining operation like this,” Ritchie said. “So it’s always a challenge no matter where you’re at. And I think the training that we put in place is the biggest thing that we can do to help mitigate that.”
“One of our deliberate policies is that we’ll hire any student who applies and we’ll give them a chance,” Ritchie said. “And not everybody is successful. Not everybody wants to work in food and beverage, but we give them the opportunity.”
One Dining worker, who was granted anonymity for job security, talked about their experience working in Dining Services. “Some days it’s nice, calm and I’ll even say fun. Other days, there aren’t enough people, equipment isn’t working, despite the malfunction being reported months ago, and you’re forced to do the work of three people for the pay of one,” the Dining employee said. “The reasons most of us are still there are convenience, since they’ll hire anyone, the job is on campus and the personnel, as we’ve made friends with a lot of the coworkers.”
Ritchie stated that there are around 300 current student employees working in Dining and that for the first time, there are over 100 applicants waiting to be accepted. Because of the nature of student employment, turnover is something that Dining is constantly facing across campus.
“In the past, we’ve seen a ton of turnover, especially in fall quarter as students get a job and then realize, ‘Hey, I can’t balance a job and school’ or ‘I don’t wanna work for food service’ or whatever it is,” Ritchie said. “But right now, we have over 100 students on our waiting list just to get jobs … which never was the case before.”
The anonymous Dining employee asserted, “The turnover rate is the highest of the on-campus jobs, and it shows. There have been many people I’ve trained and worked with for maybe less than a week, and then I never see them again. I had a trainee ask me on his second day at Dining Services, ‘Hey, how do I quit?’”
They also discussed the training methods used by Dining Services and the inconsistencies they’ve experienced. “The training will vary. They leave the responsibility of training new employees onto the student coordinators, who themselves might not have been taught how to do certain things. Not only that, but the student coordinators may give that responsibility to a student worker since they’re too busy. Also, there are no set instructions on how to train people. I’ve taught somebody one way and watched someone else tell them to do that task differently,” the Dining employee said.
Prices and Profitability
Dining prices have seen consistent yearly increases since school was brought back in person after the pandemic, something that Masuccio said is nearly universal across college campuses. However, Masuccio also stated that Dining’s prices have not increased at the same rate as inflation, stating that they only go up around “3% or so” each year.
Masuccio spoke about the process of determining prices each year. “We review the prices we pay for our products and goods that we receive. And we look at all other expenses that are associated with building a model to determine what the total cost is,” Masuccio said. “Typically, most within this environment practice setting prices in the fall because you want to ensure that you’re not introducing surprises throughout the year.”
“Even though we might experience price increases throughout the year, we stay steady,” Masuccio said. “Typically, we follow the consumer price index for food away from home. It’s been very unstable in the past five, six years.”
Masuccio also spoke about the cyclical funding model of Dining Services and how profits have decreased significantly since COVID-19. To combat lower profits, Dining Services has had to focus on profitability, something that they have done successfully, according to Masuccio.
“As far as profitability overall, it goes back to reserves,” Masuccio said. “We are not able to contribute to the reserves as we did in 2020 and before. So, the financial status is much different than it was pre-COVID. We are much more profitable per se, but not to the levels that would really help us make major changes to our program.”
Changes to come
One major change that was shared by Masuccio was that, “Our meal plan structure and housing structure is changing so that it’s the same rate quarter over quarter. This current year, and how it has been for I don’t know how many years prior, fall rates are different than winter rates and different than spring rates, and that’s the overhead structure. Moving forward, that overhead amount is going to be the same. So it’s the same amount for the fall quarter as for the spring quarter, etc.”
Masuccio continued to speak about some of the potential changes and ideas Dining Services is looking to implement in the coming academic year, not only to help combat some of the student complaints but also to introduce entirely new aspects of Dining on campus.
“I think one thing that we’ve continuously talked about that we’re talking about now is, is there a third concept that maybe should be open? Can that kind of offset some of the desires or the inquiries we’re getting about more variety at night? Is one more concept going to impact participation at homes?”
Dining is also looking at new ideas for the coming fall quarter, including both adding a fresh-made sushi location and introducing delivery to the campus. “We’re looking at ways that we can continue to refine Holmes and the campus so that we’re not complacent,” Masuccio said.
