Hungry students challenge staff from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.--and chefs say that they're no longer adequately equipped or staffed to respond.
"Breakfast is one of our biggest problems," an Eliot chef says. "When we have sports teams in the morning, it clears us out."
And small home-style serving trays and scaled-down cooking equipment make it hard to maneuver products from refrigerators to ovens and the hot line at a satisfactory speed.
Some of the space problems result from the unique century-old architecture of the building. Some of it was by design.
In the old system, four cooks split the work for both halls in an out-of-sight, common kitchen. The new layout separates the employees into two-cook teams, with a small wok and grill station right in the servery.
"I feel it's harder. Before, cooks used to work together," an Eliot chef comments. "Now, we're separated."
By moving the cooks into view of the students, communication has increased.
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