Let's Talk: Dining Services

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Unknown Speaker 0:00
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:16
Welcome to another episode of Let's Talk UNLV

Unknown Speaker 0:19
K u n d 91.5. You're here with Tanya and

Unknown Speaker 0:23
a Alisha. And today we have a couple guests in the studio hanging out with us. We are excited to have a good time. I'm so excited that to my left we have Wade noon, who's with UNLV dining. We also have the food service director Carlos Everson joining us so why don't we talk at all food things. Also the foodies that are listening, get ready for a great episode this year moment. We always guys, thank you so much for joining us. You already have a good time. Absolutely. Nobody's nervous or anything, right?

Unknown Speaker 0:52
No, not at all guys

Unknown Speaker 0:53
approach you've done a million times. So these are my friends. These are my pals. And I'm just glad you guys took time to sit down and talk with us and chat. So we wanted to start off with you all just maybe sharing a little bit about who you are, how you came into the UNLV space and also working in collegiate hospitality. So for those that are listening again, they are affiliates with UNLV dining here on campus. There's also power through Aramark, and there are a lot of exciting changes that are taking place here on campus and we want to inform the people so let's start off with Wade you want introduce yourself and then pitch it over to Carl's

Unknown Speaker 1:25
Absolutely. So my name is Wade neuen. I'm the resident district manager here at UNLV campus. I have been on campus for seven years. And I've been with Aramark for 23 years. I'm saying that all proud and call us over here's got me well beat so no, but I started the journey as a 17 year old kid in high school, wow, working with Aramark in the dish room. And so I realized I had a passion for working around people and learn that this was going to be my career, even through college and it's been a good ride. So I started in New Mexico State University, and then transferred out to Arizona State University, and then over to UNLV. So it's been a nice journey and lots of different great people like you all and having the ability to get to work around people is what I'm passionate about and serve. You

Unknown Speaker 2:10
said 2323 years. He's young, so for those who can't see us, but he started to you guys

Unknown Speaker 2:19
gonna say what is your nursery

Unknown Speaker 2:23
and Aramark? We're always

Unknown Speaker 2:26
whoa, whoa. Did you hear my head snap?

Unknown Speaker 2:35
Thank you so much. Wait, what about you call us tell somebody about yourself.

Unknown Speaker 2:38
So I'm called the server soon food service director, residential. I've been with Aramark now for 31 years told you

Unknown Speaker 2:47
that he got based on his voice

Unknown Speaker 2:50
30 child's

Unknown Speaker 2:55
31 So just like wait, I started from the bottom and worked my way up to where I am now. I started at East Carolina University as a

Unknown Speaker 3:07
cook calf

Unknown Speaker 3:08
supervisor if you want to call it that served regional vice president at the time Brandy heatherly moved myself up and around the globe if you will. I could travel for airport for two and a half years and made my way out to Vegas on being here for four and a half years.

Unknown Speaker 3:25
Yeah, he's selling himself short. Yeah, he this man is culinary trained and let me tell you he can he can cook I Alicia

Unknown Speaker 3:33
vouch for that again. I'm a foodie. I just want to say I've gained a lot of weight around this guy's you know?

Unknown Speaker 3:40
Are you the person responsible for those craptastic for

Unknown Speaker 3:47
me because listen, I'm not putting anything out there and he can't approve. So yeah, give them time. We

Unknown Speaker 3:52
will go with that. Like

Unknown Speaker 3:54
I promise you when I go in there like I had to like avoid eye contact with half of the counters. Like I know the food bears have no words.

Unknown Speaker 4:06
I just want to let you all know this is not a paid programming. So she's not telling you No, she's not getting paid to say this. We have people on his campus unfortunately they have not forever visit the dining hall for our residential now we see a lot of people in the retail space and we'll talk about some of those areas. But you'll be surprised I've run into a faculty staff student, some faculty who've been in for 20 plus years and never visited the food hall you know well our dining hall let me say that

Unknown Speaker 4:30
you're absolutely missing out. And I have discovered different things for my palate. I've not wanted the bean burgers. And they have like different international affairs which has been really nice. So a taste of this a taste of that. And then they have your standard fare like your potato bars and your salad and oh my gosh, you know those kettle fries,

Unknown Speaker 4:50
or we try to switch it up right being the most diverse campus in the nation. We have our job cut out for us to try to keep it in justing and, and keep everybody's palate appeased. Right? And so call us and the team do a great job with that for sure.

Unknown Speaker 5:05
And I don't know if a lot of people know, but you can like eat it and take it with you. It's like the little trays that you buy.

Unknown Speaker 5:12
We have a reusable recycling to go program. So absolutely, we do have it. You don't want to jump. You sound like you gotta

Unknown Speaker 5:22
give me a meal card. And we

Unknown Speaker 5:24
know what way we do it some ambassador, so maybe, yes, our ambassadors are you gonna be dying soon to be UNLV? Eats? Ambassador? Yes. You

Unknown Speaker 5:32
know, at least you brought up a good point. It's funny, right? So I've been here seven years. And in that seven years, I think every semester I meet at least five to six students who have never been to the dining hall and are in their senior year, junior year, I think I shared the story with you of a woman who called my office and had been here like 30 years. And she's like, I was calling to see if I can come to the dining commons. And I'm like, Well, yeah, we're open to the public. And she says, Well, I've been in FTTH for 2030 years, and I've never been over and I'm like, Are you living under a rock? Like, that's crazy, right. But yeah, we've got to, we got to get the word out. And so Alicia, thank you for all that you do in our marketing team and making that happen. But we're here to tell the people about the dining hall and all of the dining options we have across campus.

Unknown Speaker 6:17
So can I saw a holiday related question? Do you have like holiday centered meals that you offer?

Unknown Speaker 6:24
We're going to talk about that a little later.

Unknown Speaker 6:29
I'm there with the food part of

Unknown Speaker 6:30
becoming culture meals that come for a black history month we have that? Well, it's a variety of food. I'll

Unknown Speaker 6:41
let you listen.

Unknown Speaker 6:44
Let me hold back. But yes, answer your questions. It's a hard Yes. Yeah. Maybe

Unknown Speaker 6:47
music and narrative.

Unknown Speaker 6:50
Live. And listen, I just don't want to give honor to the dining hall, we have a retail space as well. We also have some catering services. I'll let you all talk about that. But okay, I'm jumping the gun because I'm really slow down. Let's get back to it. College and wait, you know, we says here, you know, what drew you to UNLV? Because you said, keywords like you've global, you've worked all over. I know, you said Arizona, things like that. But why UNLV in particular. And the other side of the question is why this type of work? Because I know boots on the ground. It's hard. It's a lot of work. So you have to be built for it. So why are you No vegan then why this type of work? So

Unknown Speaker 7:32
for me, it would be just like, wait, I'm a people person. Even though a lot of people say I'm a loner. I am I like to be alone, but also like to interact with the students. Most students that come to DC, I need to know him by name. I know my face. And if there's something that I can help them with, they normally come up to me, you know, and I can help them out anyway.

Unknown Speaker 7:57
But not only are you a people's person, but did not hear that you went to school in New York, I believe.

Unknown Speaker 8:03
Yes. Sometimes it drives me crazy.

Unknown Speaker 8:08
I can cook. If anybody's listening if you've never met Mr. Everson. First of all, we had a cookoff challenge at time you you didn't come to that, I don't believe but it was a whole shelf. cookoff Shannon watts? Last month, right? It was. So not only do you have a passion for people, but you also know the food industry and enjoy the food industry right? way that goes to you now a cook. Yeah. So for

Unknown Speaker 8:31
me it cook off, it was good. And he made some amazing tacos that were amazing, for sure. So

Unknown Speaker 8:36
where was the memo, I feel like I feel some kind of way it happened

Unknown Speaker 8:47
there will be another time I promise you that way

Unknown Speaker 8:50
you will be. So for me,

Unknown Speaker 8:52
I, you know, just trying to grow my career and had the opportunity to come here and take on the role that I'm in. But once I got here, I learned how much passion I had for the community and the overall community that UNLV has here. As well as the opportunity to grow the program, right. I was excited to see a campus this size with this many students and the opportunity we have from a dining services program to really be able to provide service to every student that comes on campus because we've got some work cut out for us, right. So we're excited to be able to grow our footprint and to be able to provide different points of service that truly provide all of the services needed for this campus.

Unknown Speaker 9:32
Love it, love it. Love it. So you know I when I go into, I'm going to keep going back to the dining facility. Because I'm reminiscing. I noticed that the dining facility also has partnerships with different things like Debbie, the dietitian comes through. Can you talk about some of the partnerships and some of the the services that are provided that are actually that come to the dining facility to help serve the needs of the students?

Unknown Speaker 9:55
Absolutely. So we partner with many different community partners and Alicia has done a great job on our team of getting us involved with some other connections like the radio station here and having the DJs in the in the dining hall every week, so thankful for that. But Debbie, the dietitian is great for us, it has us an opportunity to be able to connect a student that may have specific needs around dietician, or special diet that they need to follow. We work very closely with her. But also we partner with RHA Residence Hall Association, right, because we're breeding those students that live on campus, and that they are the voice for those students. And so we meet on a monthly basis in regards to our dining Advisory Board meeting, those students come provide us feedback to where we're able to address things immediately. Last month, we had a meeting and we had expanded our operations to Late Night with subway. And I said, Well, you know, we're not seeing a lot of sales in subway, what can we do differently. And one of our members raised their hand, they said, with all due respect, no one's going out with their extracurricular activities, and then coming back and wanting to have a sandwich with cold cuts, they're like, We would much rather have Taco Bell with some nice greasy food and be able to fill our bellies with that. And so we made the switch within a week to be able to transition and shift to late night at Taco Bell. And the cool part about that is, is we haven't been delivered with robots till 2am. Super, super excited, little

Unknown Speaker 11:18
like lamb, little moon rover, making history are kind of cool. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 11:25
And then just, you know, see Sun partnership, we have the opportunity to join their meeting tomorrow and present some of the cool and exciting things that we're doing. But really, it's about getting to those departments that we may not have services in like the north end of campus, right, meeting with engineering, meeting with the fine arts building in the Fine Arts team to be able to provide services in their space. It's funny, we walked in this morning into the studio here, and there's another machine from a vending perspective, right? So people don't realize we do every walk of life when every walk of service when it comes to that food on campus. And so we put that there and have the ability to serve build people in this building. So that's

Unknown Speaker 12:06
wonderful. And I was hoping

Unknown Speaker 12:15
I'm just gonna chill over here in this corner. As we speak of different types of food. I know we talked about the dining facility, but it encompasses so much more than the dining facility, right? There's different restaurants that are on campus, I discovered another coffee shop, way over yonder.

Unknown Speaker 12:32
Coffee Bean and tea leaf,

Unknown Speaker 12:33
maybe one of those, Tim, we talk about what types of food options our students have available to us, and how that ties into dining services. So

Unknown Speaker 12:41
we have a lot of new programs coming because the ones that we have now will feel outdated. So we have a kiddo will come into campus. See, y'all are ruining my life. No, no. Chicken guy. We have a chicken guy. We also have banana from Panera Panera. Hello, Shaq. Hello. So we listen to our students. And we want to make sure that we're being that we're on a diverse campus, that we're meeting the needs of all our students, not just some of our students.

Unknown Speaker 13:19
Not only not only, this is your interview, but like not only are those options coming to the issue, but we're also talking in those areas such as what they consider maybe the dark side of campus, more than north side of campus so that if there are faculty and staff on that side of the campus, they'll have more options for eateries and things like that and engaging in things that are centered around food versus having to either choose other competitors that are around campus and leave campus altogether or just opt out not to have anything particularly because there's nothing that's in this that area that they can actually be service with

Unknown Speaker 13:59
just ruined my whole weight loss plan.

Unknown Speaker 14:02
already figured out how can I increase your diet and exercise? It

Unknown Speaker 14:09
is hard to be in the foodservice industry because it is available to us all the time. Listen,

Unknown Speaker 14:14
wait is in the he's gone? He goes to the dining hall and you have a salad with tuna. And you know cranberries and all this and I'm like how do you do it? Because I want to eat what I want later on. So I come in and but I'm not always so successful. It was I

Unknown Speaker 14:28
consider it to be success when you eat what you want. To me that is the measure of success. It is its success, measure success. There is something tasty that I want and it is here for me to have. Exactly

Unknown Speaker 14:40
and listen to Dr. Rogers who is listening. He also was another one that's very disciplined. I'll see him come over you've seen him call us with a salad with watermelon. You do so well. He was like oh, don't let that fool you. Don't give me you know, then I have options to do what I want. So

Unknown Speaker 14:56
you just be taking them take home trays

Unknown Speaker 15:03
under the table on his lap, as

Unknown Speaker 15:09
we've talked about some of the exciting things that are coming to the campus, what about let's talk about students? What are some of the opportunities that students have to engage with UNLV dining department?

Unknown Speaker 15:19
So the reality is we have the number one hospitality school in the nation, data gateway, we have the number one hospitality school in the nation, right. So I know Cornell University, my Bible that because we go back and forth all the time, but I know Dustin there who runs the food service program there. So we'd like to give a couple jabs. But no, for us, it's really having the ability to hone in on that and get those students to be able to come work for us, right, not only enjoy our services, but have the ability to grow their career, if they are focused in that hospitality as their major, we want to be able to have them come work for us as a student, just like Carlos and myself, right, and then make a career out of it. Right. And I think it's when you're in the hospitality industry, you always see the large hotels and resorts. And that's, that's great, right? That's wonderful. But for us having to be able to provide food services in higher education. For me, it's what I'm passionate about having the ability to watch students grow, just like I did as a young student. So it's really a great environment to work in. But also to have the ability to have them work for us and grow their career. But most importantly, we need them to get involved and enjoy our programs and offerings that we have, right? At least in those because we talk about it all the time, right? There's 30,000 students on this campus. And so that we don't get to service all of them each and every day at our points of service. So call us anything you want to add.

Unknown Speaker 16:39
I would also add we even though, you know, students come in and enjoy Don. And we also want them to know that if they were to work with us and join on as a salary manager, it's a work life balance, you're not going to the casino working seven days a week, working every holiday, you have five days on two days off. And that's the reason that I love what I do.

Unknown Speaker 17:06
I like that plug he gave that plug. And we also have different programs, peer to peer programs, a lot of opportunities to volunteer within the UNLV Donnie department. The other thing is, a lot of the students, international students, I know there are a lot of stipulations or requirements where they have to have some form of employment. I think you could speak to that more than I can. But especially for international students that were taking a residency or or maybe just transitioning, how does that service them in regards to get involved?

Unknown Speaker 17:31
Most definitely. So I know we all send it to foundations dinner a couple years back where Dr. Whitfill and President were filled mentioned that he wants to grow our student population from an international student perspective, drastically right. And so we had the opportunity to connect and be able to get those students to come work for us. Now there are some restrictions around them, you know, we'll only work for 20 hours, but it gets them acclimated to campus. And for us, we always say the most important part is that free meal, right, you get to have that free meal while you're on shift. So you have the ability to have that free meal. But then you also have the ability to work and learn and the environment in which you're living in. So always willing and excited to get more diverse individuals on our team as well as to get them acclimated to the US. Right? That's right.

Unknown Speaker 18:12
And you have some really wonderfully healthy options to like, I'm not lying about the fries.

Unknown Speaker 18:22
I'm telling I'm not knocking any other restaurant but doesn't mean them fries.

Unknown Speaker 18:26
Yeah. Every day, I made myself a promise to just keep walking every day I'm betraying my own confidence. But there are a lot of options in terms of healthy options. There's vegetarian options, there's fast food options, there's slow food options, there's so you do have a lot of options that are available to the students. We do eat there we do

Unknown Speaker 18:46
and some of the new things that we're going to launch as we come out of this RFP process and be able to continue to provide services here is what we call a true balance station. And that's an allergen free destination, a different kitchen that's off to the side that will be able to prepare things in a safe manner to ensure that they're safe for someone with a food allergy. Right. So I know you're right, we locked eyes there look at that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 19:08
The to balance station, we would just talk about gluten and gluten allergies and how you have to navigate that and then you just made my dreams come true.

Unknown Speaker 19:17
Incredible about that when I was coming up, even for undergrad, I didn't have options like this. Go to the dining hall you get what you get when you go ahead and get out of there. And most times it was the same thing seven days a week you knew what to expect or to avoid, you know, for that matter, but I really applaud UNLV and I applaud the UNLV dining team for just being so flexible. Okay, and it takes a lot of work. I mean, you know back of the house colonists right in the preparation of the food and making sure I'm the things are done properly. But also, there's a chance that if a student doesn't see anything that they want out there and especially when it comes to allergy, won't you all prepare meals separately for that individual student? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 19:56
So we worked with several students where they had food With allergens that we had to prepare their meal, right there on the spot, or if they gave us enough time, we were helping me already when it came into done. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 20:09
y'all are amazing. So while we are while we are having this conversation, can we talk about accessibility like so? What times what hours? What days? Can students stop in what's required to have a meal at the dining hall or one of these other facilities?

Unknown Speaker 20:24
So we'll start by saying it's open to anyone, right? So we want to make sure that that's public announcement number one, right, everybody is learning about anyone, all y'all. Faculty, staff, commuter students. Yeah. And so we've developed in partnership with Alicia, our meal plans that are designed around those students in mind and those individuals, whether it's faculty, staff, and or a commuter student, we are open seven days a week in the dining hall. And every meal plan is also sold with some Dining Dollars attached so that they can enjoy one of our 19 Real retail locations across the campus. And having the ability to not only do that, through those seven days a week service, we have just recently expanded what we call our meal exchange program. And so if a student has a class, from 830, to nine, our dining hall closes at nine o'clock, they can go into our market and have the ability to get a meal exchange all the way until 2am. So definitely thankful for that.

Unknown Speaker 21:25
Absolutely. Everything when I add to that, Carlos, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 21:31
Part that someone might say it's the buffet. So you can eat at multiple spots? Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 21:37
And the other part, I didn't want us to say that yes. So we have the meal plan. Here's what I found. I've had the opportunity at one point to sit at the cash register in the dining hall, and see individuals come in who paid just the door right individuals, meaning faculty and staff, and sometimes even students, well, they will pay the door rate. And I'm good would face I'll remember, you know, people's faces. So they will come in again that week. And another time and I've stopped them, I say, Hey, are you paying that just inquire first. So you pay in the door rate? And they'll say, Yeah, so what did you know that we have a commuter meal plan where that you can purchase, it'd be so much cheaper than constantly, if you're going to tweak, you know, frequent play several times a week, you definitely want to get more bang for your buck. Absolutely. And a lot of them was like, Oh, my goodness, I didn't know that. Can you give more information, of course, I pull out the pamphlet, the brochure, here you go, you know, just letting them know. So those who are listening, you have the option to pay at the door rate. And there are a lot of people that do. But if you'd like me, which I'm think most of us sit at this table, you're like me, you want it you want more bang for your buck, then explore the options for the commuter meal plans, outside of the residential meal plans, because it would definitely save you costs. Now if you want more information about how to do that, here's the plug, visit UNLV donnie.com. And you can see the information as well as on campus this but with all sincerity, it is cheaper to do it that way, Tanya, so you excellent. We have mail exchange, we have the meal plans. But also people do sometimes choose to pay the door, right? Because they're just not informed or have a knowledge about the options for meal plans.

Unknown Speaker 23:03
And to your point, they come with dining dollars, right, so you're able to not only eat there, but you can roll into pandas rolling the coffee, get some coffee. So

Unknown Speaker 23:14
Sammy each all

Unknown Speaker 23:17
tax free. Wanting to we also love to call us with all the details.

Unknown Speaker 23:24
Barry White over here is also tax free.

Unknown Speaker 23:32
I love it too, is like smooth and tax free.

Unknown Speaker 23:36
We only have a few moments left. And I know we've talked about a variety of things that we've kind of jumped around, I enjoyed the conversation, but it's not so format, right? We could just be our authentic sales and have good conversations. And I'm hoping that the listeners have really gained some information as well. Thank you all

Unknown Speaker 23:51
so much for having us is this is super fun, and we love doing it. It's definitely out of our norm but you know, you got to do all kinds of different fun things that are out of your norm. Right.

Unknown Speaker 24:00
Exactly. And then just a special thank you to all of our partners on campus the athletic department here rebel HD to the grad college when we we have we can go on and on. Debbie's the dietician, shout out, shout outs, listen, UNLV TV, UNLV. TV, oh my gosh, thank you all so much because we could not do what we do without their support and assistance. And so we're just looking for building and making our department even greater as the years to come. So I'll leave you gentlemen with the final words if anything he wants to the work the listeners to take away. We

Unknown Speaker 24:32
just challenge everyone to try our facilities right and come out to the dining commons. If you haven't gone yet, and you're a freshman or a senior or any walk of life that's in the UNLV community, please come out. Give us a shot come out on a cultural meal. By the way our friends giving is next Tuesday evening from five to nine. It's one of my favorite meals. We all walk out of there super cool. They

Unknown Speaker 24:54
serve and Carl is the UNIT key because she did X about those kosher meals. Get back to them. Any final words get back to

Unknown Speaker 25:01
normal Thanksgiving meal. We have turkey and dressing and yams and pies and chitlins in my house, I'm sorry, but we do have special guests. Gonna be serving Dr. Rogers Dr. Whitfield nap yeah be serving to our students. So I encourage everyone to come out that night.

Unknown Speaker 25:27
This is your moment getting that and get connected and good music we're

Unknown Speaker 25:30
gonna have a DJ there our friends again here at the radio station will be coming to feature some some music for us. It's always a good time we pictures we're networking with fellowship and it's just it's a good ambiance to because they like dim the lights down. You know, it's like restaurant style. So we never come you need to come visit us on the 14th for five to nine at the dining commons and be our guests will love to host you. Okay, absolutely. You

Unknown Speaker 25:53
have me come with the food.

Unknown Speaker 25:58
Thank you all so much.

Unknown Speaker 25:59
Thank you. Thank you and that is a wrap.

Dr. Renee Watson 26:06
For more or less talk to UNLV Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook and let's talk about all the podcast Twitter and let's talk UNLV and Instagram and let's talk UNLV

Transcribed by https://otter.ai