Best of Show: Stanford University

Reallocating Labor

The central kitchen produces more than 12,000 meals a day using reallocated labor resources from across dining operations. Other campus dining halls are run by chefs de cuisine who develop about a third of each day’s menu for their specific populations, but their operations are streamlined by using the central facility for volume cooking and advance production with processes like cook-chill and sous vide.

Arrillaga also serves as a regional emergency center. The central kitchen can run for 72 hours on its own generator.

At Arrillaga itself, getting a meal is not a problem at any time of day since there is continuous service. While traditional meal times still account for most of its business, the mid-morning and mid-afternoon off-hours have been generating about 15% of its meal counts.

In the late evening, from 9 pm to 2 am, the dining hall opens its Dish at Arrillaga service, menuing both traditional favorites like pizza and wings as well as a Fit & Healthy menu. (To view of video of  Arrillaga, go to http://tinyurl.com/bpe2bzw.)

The second floor features a servery centered around a Performance Bar offering both hot and cold menu selections designed in accordance with Stanford’s new Performance Dining program.

Performance Dining combines flavor and optimum nutrition to help students reach and perform at their mental and physical peaks. The program was launched in stages, with, for example, the “brain performance component” debuting around finals time to encourage participation.

The goal of Performance Dining is not just to provide healthful meals to students during their college years but to give them healthful lifestyle lessons they can use after they leave Stanford.

There is also a custom induction display cooking station with concepts that rotate each meal period. Next to it, a “Wall of Fire” station has a four-foot chargrill, a huge gas-fired deck oven for roasted meats and slow-cooked braised dishes and a custom-designed eight-spit rotisserie.

 The second floor also includes a culinary demonstration suite that hosts cooking classes and serves as a production space for both traditional and late night service. The cooking suite serves as the centerpiece of Stanford’s Culinary Studio where Stanford Dining hosts cooking classes and demonstrations that are televised in the dining rooms.