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Students were dissatisfied with a very dated and dark dining operation that was not aligned with contemporary customers' eating habits. High operational costs led to high prices, which resulted in poor sales. "We wanted to create a space that fostered community engagement and promoted health and wellness," says Adam Millman, director of auxiliary operations for Yale I Iospitality. "In addition, the goal was to increase participation and compete with the external dining options by offering menu items they are not able to offer, which is fresh, customizable health- and wellness-focused food."
"The last pace of service requirements was the numberone challenge in this concept," says Rafi Taherian, associate vice president of Yale Hospitality. "In Yale Hospitality our number-one driver is to create memorable experiences for our guests each and every time. Coexisting quick-casual and memorable experiences are challenging, and in this case, our customers, and we, strongly believe we have reached the right solution. I must give credit to Adam Millman, who provided strong leadership, imagination and innovation in each phase of ideation and concept development."
"The original café was located in a space that can only be described as the negative space created from the space between four primary first-floor activities," says Gary M. I .epore, ATA, NCARB, I .EFT) AP, whose firm, 1 .DL Studios Inc., provided the architecture and interior design.
When the design team met with Yale Hospitality and did the initial walk-through of the entire space, they saw a menu platform that was originally intended to be a custom sandwich area with cooks grilling that had been replaced by packaged sandwiches and ice wells holding sushi to accommodate customers' menu preferences. In addition, the largest, heavy cooking menu platform across the rear of the café, with large flattops and charbroilers with exhaust hoods above was no longer used. Combination hot and cold wells were used with a smaller cooking platform that had a smaller menu supported by the campuses' main culinary support kitchen and shorter cook-to-order program. "Surrounding external venues had changed, which explained why' the cafe's...