The Greenery, known by on-campus students because of the mandatory meal plans, is both an all-you-can-eat asset, and a common student enemy. Through Evergreen’s contract with Aramark, they have reserved their role as Evergreen’s sole food provider. Found also in the P.O.D. and Einstein’s, it is the single provider that students pay up to thousands of dollars per quarter to access. Despite The Greenery perpetuating stereotypically laughable school food services, an inside look on the quality of the food at The Greenery prompts the question—how poor can these services become until they escalate from a comical trope to a real health and safety issue?
The reality of The Greenery may be easier to ignore especially for those to whom The Greenery is a necessary resource. Although, if it is both a high–and mandatory–expense for students living on campus, then there must be utmost transparency about the services provided. It is natural to expect that a mandatory service meets basic regulatory health standards, but details of The Greenery’s operations tell us that this baseline has been —and continues to be— disrespected. When a lack of transparency hides subpar operations, the significance of exposing these operations is therefore essential. If food service operations cannot at any point be openly exposed, then they must instead change to reflect baseline standards of sanitation and food quality. It is vital to provide students with the ability to make informed decisions about dining on campus and to understand the role that their institution’s contract has on their daily food experiences.
This month, the Cooper Point Journal had the privilege of interviewing a former Greenery employee, Anonymous, who tells us about their experiences training and working at The Greenery. From food storage to operational standards to workplace environment, Anonymous discloses some of the highlights about dining at The Greenery.
You mentioned some concern about conditions at The Greenery influencing the quality of the food, what were some of these concerns? Okay so, the big area is—you know the vegan options as well as the side dishes on the side [specifically referring to the cold food in the open bar next to the salad bar]? A lot of that is expired and you just don’t know whether it is or not. We have had to throw away so much food because nobody labels anything. We produce enough quantity to have in the fridge, but then we don’t know what’s been there super long and what hasn’t. Nobody tells me. I can’t throw it away because I’d have to throw everything away and then I’ve been out there and like ‘This is full of fungus. I don’t think this is good to eat.’ That’s the biggest problem area. It’s a lot of the fruits that are in the vegan section that have been there a long time, longer than they should have.
And then moving on to the pizza station, it’s not as concerning, but they don’t label stuff. It’s not at the same level [as the cold food open bar where] they make so much that it’s easier for it to just accumulate and then you get stuff from last week still in there. But at the pizza station that also happens sometimes where stuff accumulates and it’s not used when it’s supposed to and you’re getting fed food that’s expired. Some of the cleaning processes—they don’t follow them. You’re supposed to apply soapy water and then sanitizer and then they don’t do soapy water—they just skip it every time. I remember when I started, I was like ‘How is everyone so fast?’ and then I was like ‘Oh they’re skipping steps, okay. They’re getting angry at me because I’m not fast enough, I have to skip steps, okay.’
It’s interesting, so they care a lot about speed then, too? Yeah, it’s a lot more about speed. Like, we got to be out of here at ‘this’ time, so some things are just not cleaned. I’m surprised we don’t have a rat problem. There’s so much food under the different equipment. I’ll sweep under there sometimes during my shift, but it’s a lot.
The Greenery has lots of different food service workers with student staff and what appear to be long-term or professional staff. Would you say that employee training, treatment, and working conditions influence the quality of the food? One hundred percent. And I’d say it’s not great. Not everyone is bad but there’s a few long-term employees that have been there a while that are just not great. They’re really mean to the staff, they’re really mean to the customers. They’re not mean to your face but they’re like ‘Oh that fatso’s coming in, he’s gonna f-ing grab the burger again and we’re gonna have to make more, dude.’ They know who you are, and they make comments about you behind your back all the time.
They [the kitchen staff] don’t really tell you what to do, at least in my experience. One guy told me what to do, I did what he told me, they [the other kitchen staff] told me that was wrong, I need to do ‘this’ thing. There’s no coordination between people so you get told different things by different people and then no matter what you do, you’re wrong with somebody.
So, the training is pretty poor? Would you say you ever got a formal training? When I was originally in pizza station, I did get a formal training. But when I moved over, I did not get a training at all, and they were just like ‘do this.’ And I don’t know what this [new] station is, what to do, you [the kitchen staff] just told me to move here. And they get really angry at you if you don’t get things right away. My biggest problem was the cohesion because I’d be told to do something and then I’d do it, but then somebody else in the kitchen doesn’t want me to do it that way and there’s just not that much cohesion or communication between them to have standard practices.
What surprised you the most about working at The Greenery in general? I guess just the work environment, it tears people down. We had a lot of nice people that just quit because they couldn’t take it because of the problem employees. That’s why I quit eventually. I was like, ‘You know what? I’m not dealing with this. I’ll figure something out.’
You’ve talked about this a little bit already, I’ll ask it anyway to see if anything else comes up, but can you talk to me about food storage, food quality, and serving food at The Greenery? For a while there was a fridge that was broken. It was not staying at the temperature it should have been. And I reported it multiple times and they still kept it. It took like two months for them to be like ‘Okay stop bothering us about it, we’re not putting food in there.’ And I was like ‘Yeah you shouldn’t be putting food in there!’
What is the structure of who is in charge of how The Greenery is running? Is it professional staff? Is it someone higher? There’s someone higher; there’s this guy that works in the kitchen that’s also doing stuff in the back like taking orders. He’s one of the problem people. And then we have two other people that are just purely office based that work more on the technical side. In ordering storage, I think part of it is just the system with Aramark. I don’t know about the margins, but I overheard that we’re not making that much of a profit. Evergreen’s not? Not Evergreen, The Greenery. They’re not making that much of a profit and a lot of the food is really cheap so it’s not like its good value. I don’t think it’s really good for you, most of the things you’re getting from there are cheap. That’s kind of built into the machine, it’s not because of any one person in power. I don’t even think they have enough money to give you good food.
Knowing what the food service is like at The Greenery, would you still eat there? I wouldn’t eat there, no. Sometimes there’s good stuff, I won’t deny that, but most of the time, no.
There are some days that the food is not bad, and then there’s some days it’s abysmal. Do you know what the reason is for why these changes might be? What might make the food taste better one day and worse the next? Ingredient quality. For some things you can buy cheap ingredients and it’s good, but for some things you can’t. We have some really talented chefs in there but they’re working with bad clay. What are you going to do?
Is there anything about food prep that you have any thoughts about? Or concerns about? I think the only issue with food prep—for example, when I was in pizza station—people told me to do it different ways. A lot of them didn’t work, I had to figure out my own way. The way they had it set up to make the pizza in the way other people were doing it, they would leave the pizza in the cooling area, which you’re not supposed to do. Because then it stays there, it starts getting bad. It’s not as bad health-wise, although sometimes it is bad health-wise because some of those were in there for weeks and nobody touched them. Like in the fridge you said? Well, they had a cooling mini fridge in the back where you can store the pizza stuff and bring it out and then get it ready. So there’s a lot of times the dough is left in there and then it sticks to the thing [the metal plate] so then I go to make the pizza, and it’s stuck to material so I can’t get it out.
The Cooper Point Journal is committed to a further investigation of campus food systems. If you have anything to share about The Greenery or with food access on campus in general, please contact us via email or @yourcpj on Instagram.
