It was not until 2001 that Ouachita saw the opening of the Commons, Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. Given the history of Ouachita and how long the college has been around, these places are still pretty new, especially for many faculty and staff members.
“We had a cafeteria — that’s all there was,” said Dr. Joe Jeffers, dean of the Patterson School of Natural Sciences. “We didn’t have a Chick-fil-A and no Starbucks, only Birkett Williams Cafeteria; nor did we have the amount of choice there is today. We could choose to eat what was there or not to eat at all.”
Jeffers attended Ouachita from the fall of 1962 to the spring of 1966. He returned in January of 1972 and has been here ever since.
“When I returned in January of ’72, we had more but still nothing like we have now,” he said. “And over the years the food has progressively gotten better with more variety. Opening up the Commons was an overnight sea of change in terms of what was available. All of a sudden we had pizzas, a new salad bar, a burger grill and, of course, the regular main line. I don’t think the international line came until later.”
Only recently has the cafeteria been open on Sunday evenings, so students who wanted to eat dinner on Sundays had to go someplace else.
“We had a place called Connie’s located near 10th and Caddo Streets that we’d regular,” said Bill Vining, former Ouachita head basketball coach and athletic director. “But back in those days you didn’t go out and eat very much because most of us didn’t have cars and there weren’t many places you could walk to. The thing about Connie’s was that he had the best chicken fried steak that I’ve ever had up to this day.”
Vining graduated from Ouachita in 1951. After serving in Korea and being awarded a Purple Heart he came back to Ouachita and served as the head basketball coach and the assistant football coach. In 1956 he became athletic director in addition to coaching. He eventually retired in 1989 from his coaching position and remained as the athletic director from which he retired in 1996.
“I came from a family where whatever they put on the plate was what you ate,” he said. “You didn’t have a choice nor the chance to say ‘I don’t like this.’ So what little they had was fine to me with one exception: the slimy okra.”
Vining said one of the benefits of being in football or basketball was that you had tables already set up for you and a student waiter at each of those tables.
“They’d have the food already out and you’d pass it around the table family style,” he said. “I thought all that was good except when the other students came in for the main line, they could look at and watch you. I was never really comfortable with that.”
In terms of the social aspects of dining, certain groups of students would flock to certain areas of the cafeteria.
“It was much more pronounced than it is today,” said Dr. Keldon Henley, vice president for student services. “There was a salad bar that divided the dining area and there were social strata that were defined by which side of the salad bar you would sit on.
“On the left side you would have those that considered themselves on a higher social plain. And on the right side of the salad bar were mostly freshmen and then the various different groups who had their own social networks.”
Henley graduated from Ouachita in 1986 and returned as an administrator in 1993. While he was here as a student, the dining service was contracted to a group called Saga, which was later sold to Marriott. Marriott then merged and became known as Marriott-Sodexho, eventually dropping the “h” and becoming known as just Sodexo.
One of the former food service directors was a man named Walter Kehoe, who was described as a “character and a half” by Jeffers. One of the things Kehoe would do for the students was to come dressed as a Twinkie, which many people still at Ouachita pleasantly recall.
“Walt was very friendly,” Vining said. “He would walk around and visit with the groups. He also was a wise-cracker. You’d say something to him and he could crack a million and one back to you. You could visit and have fun with him because he was pleasant to be around. As far as I know everybody liked him and really had a good time with him. He was especially good to our athletes at pre-game meals.”
Needless to say, campus dining has changed significantly over the years, especially with the opening of the Commons.
“I like to kind of take ownership of the food service and align it with the university’s expectations,” said Jon Fitzgerald, the general manager for Sodexo at Ouachita. “I mean, it’s college food service, so it’s not like you’re going to Ruth Chris or anything – although we can cater like that.
“You have to hire the right staff, which is something that I think we’re moving towards in the right direction. You need to get to know the kids, know their expectations and you have to [hire] the right people who can do that.”
In order to meet students’ expectations, food services has comment cards outside of its office in the Commons. Fitzgerald also meets with a food committee of about 15 students from freshmen to seniors who bring to their meetings much of what their peers are saying about campus dining.
“I’m also trying to introduce some changes,” he said. “We’re at the point in the year now where the meals are becoming a little monotonous. I’ve put Vivian at breakfast so the students will have some form of breakfast cooked to order. The other night we had a Mexican style thing going on. We [just had] Thanksgiving which [was] amazing and we’ll see Christmas dinner coming up soon. We’re going to have a huge 22-25 foot Christmas tree coming in from a local tree farm that we’ll have set up.”
Some of these changes and new concept introductions will also affect the self service Chick-fil-A in the Evans Student Center. There are plans to remodel Chick-fil-A next summer so that it will include new features.
“You guys are really going to see some changes next fall,” Fitzgerald said. “I can’t say what all that is yet, but we have some new stuff coming – I’m really excited.”
Picture by Erica Porter.
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