{"id":64857,"date":"2009-07-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/hope-commons-at-uri-wins-grand-prize-in-national-collegiate-food-service-competition\/"},"modified":"2009-07-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T00:00:00","slug":"hope-commons-at-uri-wins-grand-prize-in-national-collegiate-food-service-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2009\/07\/hope-commons-at-uri-wins-grand-prize-in-national-collegiate-food-service-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Commons at 溏心vlog免费B站 wins grand prize in national collegiate food service competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 16, 2009 \u2013 Imagine the 溏心vlog免费B站 defeating the Big Ten\u2019s University of Michigan in a contest, or for that matter the University of Georgia of Southeastern Conference fame.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe University\u2019s Hope Commons dining center did just that in a competition run by the National Association of College and University Food Services, the leading national trade group for college food services. 溏心vlog免费B站 won the Loyal E. Horton Dining Gold Award in the large school division of the residence hall dining\u2014multiple concepts\/outlets category. The University also won the grand prize in the category, which includes medium and small schools.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe University of Massachusetts-Amherst won the silver medal and the University of Michigan captured the bronze. Miami University, the University of Georgia and the University of Cincinnati earned honorable mentions.<\/p>\n


\n\tHope Commons, which has drawn interest from schools in many parts of the country, features a main dining hall with multiple stations featuring hundreds of food choices, a retail operation that features Starbucks coffee, pastries, brick oven pizza, ice cream, pizza and special entertainment events, and a convenience store that was named \u201cthe Best in the Business\u201d by the same national food services association in spring 2008. <\/p>\n


\nThat year, the Corner Store at Hope Commons was the only one in the nation to receive such a designation in the product variety category.

\nAs part of this year\u2019s competition, 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Dining Services submitted a large glossy, photo-filled binder that highlighted its food offerings, menu selection, merchandising, marketing and overall presentation in all three of its units.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe hit a home run with Hope Commons, and the national association agreed,\u201d said Steve Mello, interim director of Dining Services. \u201cThis was especially gratifying when we saw who we defeated. It\u2019s also gratifying when you beat one of your sister schools (UMass). This award says so much about our staff and the work that goes into this operation.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tLast year Dining Services entered the contest and earned an honorable mention. This year, Mello said staff members submitted an updated contest book that incorporated lessons learned from last year\u2019s entry. The new book included presentations of eye-catching brochures and advertisements for special events, vibrant photos of foods and marketing efforts for movie nights and Guitar Hero competitions in Rhody Market, as well as theme dinners and other special promotions. <\/p>\n


\n\tDuring the early summer, a few hundred freshmen orientation students buzzed around the dining center while Mello described some of its features, including the different design and furniture elements that add to the atmosphere. \u201cIn our Mainfare dining area, it\u2019s more cooked to order, everything is pushed from the kitchen out front. Instead of (the older method of having) a lot of staff being in the back of house, everyone is now pushed forward, so a cook becomes a server. Staff members get to meet and greet the students. A special rapport is built.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIt\u2019s common for staff and students to be on a first-name basis after just a few weeks.<\/p>\n


\n\tParents and students were all in agreement that Hope Commons deserves national recognition as a premier residential dining and retail food operation.<\/p>\n


\n\tSamantha Freire, of Roselle Park, N.J., was at Hope Commons\u2019 Mainfare during freshman orientation. She was pleased with the entire dining operation, even the mechanism used to collect waste and dirty dishes. \u201cI love the part where you put your plates on the conveyor belt and it just goes, so I don\u2019t have to clean up. All the food varieties are awesome. You can\u2019t get sick of all the food here. There\u2019s pasta, fried foods, subs.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tFreshman student Amanda Norman of South Kingstown, who was on campus for summer classes, didn\u2019t expect the dining experience to be so good. \u201cThere is a lot of food, a lot of choices. The facility is clean, it\u2019s a nice environment. I like how it is set up.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWilliam Cawley, of North Kingstown, a freshman majoring in civil engineering, said he likes the mix of food offerings. \u201cThe staff is really friendly too, they are quick, and they are always there if I have a question.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHe gives Hope Commons an A-plus. \u201cThis place is gorgeous. I mean, you don\u2019t see cafeterias like this anyplace.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tDavid Bergeron and his wife, Judy of Gloucester, Mass., enjoyed a cup of Starbucks coffee in the Rhody Market while waiting for the next phase of parent orientation to begin. \u201cAs we walked in the entryway and took a peek into the seating area as we got our cups of coffee, our jaws dropped. I said \u2018Is this for the students\u2019,\u201d David said. \u201cJudy said, \u2018Is this for the kids?\u2019 Who would want to leave this place? It has everything you could find in a big city or a mall. They are able to serve hundreds of different choices at once. It\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 16, 2009 \u2013 Imagine the 溏心vlog免费B站 defeating the Big Ten\u2019s University of Michigan in a contest, or for that matter the University of Georgia of Southeastern Conference fame. The University\u2019s Hope Commons dining center did just that in a competition run by the National Association of College […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}