In years past, finding a place on St. John’s Queens campus to satisfy your hunger usually brought about bad food and unhealthy choices. Students complained that there was only one saving grace here at St. John’s University, and that was the Law School Cafeteria. But, times have changed.
Over the past few years, complaints persisted and Montgoris, Marillac Cafeteria, and the C-Store, now known as the Hungry Johnnie, took the brunt of the abuse.
“The food was slop,” said Erik Nelson, a senior Criminal Justice major. “I couldn’t eat there.”
But now, in 2006, a new word has been introduced to St. John’s students’ vocabulary; that word is Sodexho. The new food service provider has provided St. John’s students with some pleasant surprises.
This sentiment tends to ring true for most students that indulge in the Sodexho food menu. However, the question that remains is whether Sodexho is going far enough to meet the hunger needs of the students it caters to.
“I wish it would have more guest cooks and a better variety of food,” said Sean Culkin, a freshman in the Tobin College of Business. “Sometimes it feels like I’m eating the same thing every time I walk into Montgoris.”
Variety is something that students have had an issue with for years, especially concerning Montgoris Dining Hall.
Sodexho has done a decent job replacing Aramark, the old regime that used to serve up questionable food. The mood has changed dramatically around campus in less than a year, but Sodexho needs to go further and implement more tactics that other schools have successfully tried with their own students.
“I briefly went to Boston College to check it out,” Culkin said, “and I couldn’t believe how pumped the students were for the food there. They remarked that they sometimes had world class chefs in the school and that the food was always one of the things they looked forward to.”
Indeed, if Sodexho hopes to completely win over students’ stomachs, they need to think on a much larger scale. The ideas of guest cooks and better variety lend itself to superior food, adding a new dimension to St. John’s.
