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If St. Jerome’s has any sort of reputation, you can bet it’s related to community or food. In Maclean’s Magazine’s “University 411” on the University of Waterloo, our cafeteria was named by a UW student as the best place to get food on campus. Athletes and foodies alike can be seen toting two, even three heaping plates out of the cafeteria at a time thanks to an “all-you-can-eat” meal plan. Faculty and staff buy their lunches from our cafeteria. Don’t even get me started on the chocolate milk.
What most people don’t know, however, is how much community and food have in common here, and how much they interact with each other. A prime example: the round tables in our dining hall, also known as the community centre. There’s always room for one more around the table, even if it’s a bit squishy. Rarely do you see a student eating alone here – and if you do they’re probably working on a paper or an assignment at the same time, so it’s done out of respect.
So what makes our food so good? Part of it is Dana Hospitality (our food services provider) and their commitment to using fresh, local food – but the little things make a huge difference on both sides of the servery. I caught up with Kevin McKay, Dana’s food services director at St. Jerome’s, to get his take.
Jon: What’s your background in food services?
Kevin: I started about 30 years ago in food services – a little over 30 years ago as a matter of fact. I started as a busboy in the hotels of Miami Beach and New York City; I worked in England for a while. I came back to Niagara Falls [Kevin’s hometown] and went back to school for hotel restaurant administration, and then hit the road again. I went back to the hotels down in New York, then ended up back in Niagara Falls when I was about 30 and worked in the hotels at the Falls – and then took a job at Brock University. That was my first educational account, and I helped them open up a new cafeteria there. I actually left university food services for a couple of years – and then I ran into this opportunity from Dana. Their whole philosophy was very intriguing and it’s what brought me here to St. Jerome’s. I’ve been in educational food services for probably about 15 years now. The quality of life in the food industry is really fantastic when you’re tied into an educational facility. You’re not here until 3 a.m. every morning, your summers are quieter, you get to spend more time with your family – the quality of life is what brought me back to residence dining, and I think being around students is what makes me feel younger than I am… That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
J: How would you describe Dana’s food philosophy?
K: Dana’s food philosophy focuses on local, made-in-house, made-from-scratch food. We do not rely on frozen food – almost everything’s from scratch. We do our salad dressings, soups, sauces, pickles, jams – we’re looking at making our own hot sauce – almost everything we can make in-house, we’ll try to make in-house with local ingredients. It puts money back into the community where we’re involved, it reduces our carbon footprint, it promotes sustainability, and it supports local farming. When you’re dealing with dietary accommodations like, say, Celiac disease or lactose intolerance, it’s a lot easier using mainly fresh food, because there are no preservatives - and that’s where most dietary reactants can be found. You have a much easier time accommodating for all of the dietary concerns that are brought forward by a large student population without preservatives. We believe that when you’re only using frozen food, there’s no love involved. It all comes in on a truck and then you just heat it up. There’s no love or fun in that. Fresh and local is just better – better for you, and more fun to work with for us.
J: What has surprised you about working here?
K: To be honest with you – and you can also ask J.F., who is the district manager for Dana – St. Jerome’s has the nicest students we’ve ever worked with. I already told you I’ve been in residence dining for fifteen years, and J.F.’s been involved in some way for at least twice as long as I have, so that’s really saying something about this community. Everybody’s so kind, patient, friendly, understanding, and the love that we’ve felt since we started here has been phenomenal. Everybody is so kind to our staff, we’re talked to on the same level as everybody – which is unique to any residence experience I’ve had. That goes a long way with our staff too.
J: How do you and your team go about choosing what to serve on a given day?
K: Generally, we’ll have a menu cycle, so we’ll have four weeks done and then we’ll pick and choose – take out what hasn’t worked, for example – and then we’ll use that to build a menu for the week. With our local focus, if there’s seasonal products from a local farm that we can incorporate into our menu then we’ll go that route. We get lots of feedback – student feedback on social media through Jae [Doncillo, Dana’s marketing and social media manager – and proud UW and SJU Arts & Business graduate!] that is helping drive our menu and the choices we make – but also just a lot of general feedback from students.
J: Take me on an imaginary tour through the cafeteria. What’s all going on in there?
K: Well, we’ve got our deli, with pre-made, I guess you could say “high-end,” sandwiches, where we’ll put out five different types each day of the week. The bread’s from Grain Harvest here in Waterloo and we use Bright’s Cheese from Bright, just outside of Waterloo.
Then we’d head over to the hot line, where it’s more like home cooking – lasagna, baked chicken, roast beef – all those “comfort foods.”
From there you go over to the grill. The grill gives us a bit more flexibility to make things using different cooking styles – we’ve done grilled salmon, all our breakfast stuff comes off of there, we do sliders – a number of different things. Grilled cheese and sliders are our staples, and we’ll also rotate a specialty sandwich every day.
Next is the “Food Fare,” which we’re still trying to figure out what to do with. It gives us an opportunity to accommodate students with dietary concerns or restrictions because they can pick what goes into, say, a stir-fry. We also do different things like crêpes, milkshakes, shawarma – you know, anything can come off of that station. It’s not open at lunch when we have the deli set up, but it’s open at dinner time and it seems to be a hit.
Can’t forget the salad bar – one the local faves – we try to focus on local produce as much as we can, with our house-made dressings. Same with the fruit that we put out in the morning for breakfast, but until we start growing the pineapples around here ourselves there’s only so much we can find that’s local and fresh.
J: One of the more unique parts about food services at St. Jerome’s is The Buttery in the residence. What exactly goes on in there?
K: Ah, yes, The Buttery. We did some cooking lessons in there last night – we had Chef Diego teaching residents how to cook pasta, and we brought over some snack foods like chicken wings and just, you know, had a little party over there. Chef Lina’s done some sushi rolling demonstrations to teach how to make sushi as well. On the whole, it’s a space for students to cook for themselves. We provide some items over there like peppers and eggs and yogurt, and we’ll bring leftovers in from the kitchen on a nightly basis. It’s also great for students who have late class on campus and happen to miss a meal – they can just stop by The Buttery and grab some leftovers or make something from scratch. We’re not there to cook meals for the students – we’re there to provide some guidance to the students, health and safety tips, cooking instructions… things along those lines. It’s a very social gathering space – a little small, but students come and go as they like.
J: Is there anything else that you’d like a prospective student to know about the food at St. Jerome’s?
K: We want you to know that we think the food here at St. Jerome’s is the best you can find at the University of Waterloo. We can guarantee it, and we can prove it. We stand behind our food and I think that’s what makes it so good.■
For more information on our food and the residence meal plan, visit http://www.sju.ca/dana-hospitality-st-jeromes-university and http://stjeromes.icaneat.ca/
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By Jon Franchetto
*This article is a condensed and partially edited version of the original interview.*