UC Davis: Keeping The Campus Fed

Press release from the University of California, Davis:

October 20, 2020

Food options on campus are expanding, both for quick bites to eat and for people experiencing food insecurity.

At the Coffee House, student employees have adapted to a new way of serving customers: on-campus deliveries ordered through GrubHub app.

“I’ve never done deliveries before,” said Julianna Chavez, a senior majoring in neurobiology, physiology and behavior. “It’s kind of fun. ... I get to see different parts of campus I haven’t seen in a while, like visiting the dorms, which I haven’t seen since my first year.”

She said burritos and pho are popular orders coming in from residence halls, on-campus apartments, offices and lab buildings.

Not only does she deliver, Chavez also helps oversee the preparation of the orders. When they're ready, she takes off in one of the CoHo’s electric Polaris GEM cars. She said it’s been smooth sailing getting around the mostly quiet campus, because there are few bicycles or pedestrians competing for space.

Deliveries are contact-free: She leaves the food at the door, then calls the customer to advise that their order has arrived. She sanitizes her hands often and even leaves sanitizer wipes with the food.

Swirlz is among the areas of the Coffee House that are open and serving customers. (Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)

Inside the CoHo, in order to maintain physical distancing, there are fewer employees at each station, which can mean a higher workload when things are busy.

“It’s a challenge when we get orders back to back,” she said. Still, the staff is keeping up with both walk-in and app-based customers.

Chavez previously worked as a supervisor at the Coffee House satellite operations, the CoHo South Cafe and BioBrew, which are both closed.

“This new delivery position offered me a new job and allowed me to still earn money during this pandemic,” she said.

See behind the scenes at the CoHo — and have the chance to win a CoHo gift card — with Staff Assembly’s Third Thursday Virtual Visit on Nov. 19.

More food options on campus

The Scrubs Burger — which includes a half-pound patty, bacon, dijon aioli and cheese — is now available at Scrubs Café. (Alex Fisher-Wagner/UC Davis)

Food options are expanding elsewhere on campus as UC Davis’ situation within the pandemic improves, including at Segundo and Tercero dining commons, which opened Monday (Oct. 19) for indoor dining for meal-plan-holding students who live in residence halls.

Segundo and Tercero are the only dining commons currently operating. Under public health guidelines, indoor dining capacity is limited to 100 students at a time.

Scrubs Café, also operated by Student Housing and Dining Services, last week added several items to its menu, which is to-go only. They include the Scrubs Burger, a half-pound Harris Ranch patty with cheese, bacon, Dijon aioli and arugula on a toasted brioche bun; Nashville Chicken Sandwich; and Beyond Burger.

See which Dining Services eateries are open and their hours of operation.

Pantry explores weekly pilot program in October

Ryan Choi, director of The Pantry and a senior majoring in psychology, and Paul Jennings, vice president of Daylight Foods, display a Student Dining Box. (Courtesy)

COVID-19 has forced the entire campus community to adapt, and the Pantry is no exception. The Associated Students of UC Davis unit was an early adopter of physical distancing, distributing food on the Memorial Union Patio — with everyone spaced 6 feet apart — as soon as the pandemic hit. Now it’s offering weekly “build-a-bag” pickups where food-insecure students make their selections, and volunteers load the items into grocery bags.

Also new from The Pantry are Student Dining Boxes donated by vendor Daylight Foods. They contain a fixed mix of items like potatoes, eggs, cheese, turkey sausage, milk and more — 37 pounds of food in all — and are funded by federal coronavirus relief funding. The Bay Area-based Daylight Foods received a grant to fund the donation of boxes each Friday in October, with Student Housing and Dining Services helping to bring the pallets of food to The Pantry.

More than 250 students have requested boxes, and The Pantry will distribute up to 180 this week to ensure there is no waste, Pantry director Ryan Choi said. That’s up from 90 distributed last week.

“This is something we know we can get out to students now, so we can really ramp up,” Choi said, adding he is hopeful Daylight Foods can obtain another grant to continue the program.

In the meantime, each Pantry volunteer is doing the job of five people because of coronavirus restrictions on how many staff can be inside the distribution center at a time, Choi said. Prepandemic, he said, The Pantry served 800 students a day, and is now aiming to serve 800 each week by the end of the quarter.

“Our limit is based on safety,” said Choi, adding that the volunteers have responded well to the challenge. “They’ve found it very much enjoyable to step up to the plate.”

He said the best way to support The Pantry at this time isn’t by volunteering — he has a waiting list of 40 potential volunteers — it’s through financial support. The Pantry works directly with vendors to purchase food at steep discounts, so it can purchase five times more than a person on a regular trip to the grocery store, Choi said.

Donations to The Pantry can be made online, and more information is available via email.

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This press release was produced by the University of California, Davis. The views expressed here are the author’s own.