AT A GLANCE No. of Students: 27,000 FS Employees: 146 FTEs, 500+ students Total Sales: $17.5 million Catering Sales: $2.1 million Meal Plan Sales: $10.7 million Cash / Credit cards: $3.6 million Summer Camp Programs: $650,000 Web Site: www.housing.ou.edu Key Employees: Chuck Weaver, Shirleta Benfield, Frank Henry, Kevin Barker, Ali Shafaie, David Annis.

Last August, when the University of Oklahoma first opened the doors to newly-renovated Couch Dining Hall, underclassmen waiting outside quickly lived up to the school's “Sooners” nickname, overrunning the facility with the same enthusiasm Oklahoma settlers showed in the state's 19th century land rushes.

“It was just crazy,” recalls Frank Henry, OU's director of board operations.

“We would have loved a week for a soft opening, but there just wasn't time for that. The largest part of our construction work had been squeezed into 10 weeks between graduation and August 19th, when new students arrived for orientation.

“We'd torn down walls, moved drains, put in new equipment and relocated most of the stations. It would have been hectic under any circumstances. On top of everything else, we'd changed all the existing work flows, so we were testing new ones out as we began serving customers.”

Hectic or not, the opening was a huge success. Meal plan usage in Couch increased and cash sales at the all-you care-to-eat facility were up 44 percent in 2010 when compared to pre-renovation 2008 numbers. And after a year of operation, Henry, who coordinated much of the construction, staffing and menu development for Couch, was recently honored by the OU Board of Regents with its Superior Staff award.

Couch, formerly described by students as “like a giant airport,” now offers more than a dozen unique restaurant-style concepts and food choices spanning the gamut of quickservice and fast casual dining. There are “neighborhood” seating options to match, from bistro style enclaves to restaurant booths to counter stools to traditional communal tables. Just as significant are changes in the hall's service style, which by design is now more interactive, customer focused and choice-driven.

A multi-year initiative

Among its stations, Couch sports both national restaurant brands like Chick fil-A (the only one in the country in an all-you-care-to-eat facility) and carefully-developed self branded concepts. These include its Sooner Smokehouse, Cafe del Sol, Shanghai Stir-Fry, LaRoma Pasta & Pizza and Athens Café, among others.

Several of these concepts, as well as The Laughing Tomato, a natural foods concept located at OU's Cate Center, will play a key role in plans the department has to brand and expand its campus catering services in the future (more on that later).

On the functional side, Couch retained its semi-circular layout, with a spacious front of the house surrounding a core kitchen. While most finishing work takes place out front, its display cooking stations and free-standing bars have convenient access to the common kitchen for storage, behind the scenes component prep and volume production operations.

The Couch renovation is one of many changes to OU's dining operations that have taken place in a multi-year initiative to enhance the contribution dining makes to OU's culture while also satisfying demands for greater choice, quality and convenience.

At the same time, OU is a good example of how campus dining programs across the country have sought to drive more value and efficiency in an era in which tighter cost management has taken on greater significance.

Under its former dining director, David Annis, the department made steady strides on both fronts over the past two decades. Under its new director, Chuck Weaver, it is in the process of advancing this transition in some new directions. Among Weaver's top initiatives: a focus on weekly unit manager P&L reporting, strategic brand extensions and enhancement and the re-positioning of key retail outlets to grow extended hour sales while keeping labor costs under control.

Financing cage free eggs

Annis first came to OU in 1986, when total campus foodservice sales were about $5 million and enrollment was about 18,000. There was virtually no retail service at that time, and almost all meals on campus were taken at the dining halls.

He became the director in 1993 and assembled the core management team that is still with the department today: Shirleta Benfield, Frank Henry, Kevin Barker and Ali Shafaie. Through the 1990s, the group introduced national brands, declining balance and meal plan equivalency options. As the campus grew, points of service proliferated, each with its own identity.

MANY OPTIONS, MANY NEIGHBORHOODS. Students who prefer vegetarian fare have many options at Couch and elsewhere on the campus. After its renovation, Couch was transformed from “a giant airport lounge” to a contemporary food court with numerous seating options.

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