There are plenty of places on Kansas State’s campus to dine in or dash a dinner on-the-go. Many of the employees in these establishments are also full-time students. I sat down with a few student-employees and asked them about their food service jobs at K-State.
From the dining hall to the coffee bar and from an ice cream joint to a food truck, these student-employees tell all.
Van Zile Dining Hall
Katie Gehring is sophomore in family studies & human services and Spanish. She currently works at Van Zile as a server.
“Van Zile serves food to students in the Strong community,” Gehring said. “I get there early and sometimes I’ll make pizza and work the pizza line. Then I do clean-up afterwards.”
What is your favorite thing about working in food service?
“I would say the people that I work with, because you get to work with college students. When you get with the right people, it can be a really fun shift.”
What’s your on-the-job pet peeve?
“When students mumble what they want; it can get pretty loud behind the serving line. So you’re just hovering your hand over each item, trying to see what they would like.”
What do you want to do after you graduate?
“I would like to work with the Hispanic population, maybe as an interpreter.”
Radina’s in Leadership Studies
Sophie Brooks is a junior in English creative writing and a barista at Radina’s in the Leadership Studies Building.
“[Radina’s is] a coffee shop, but we also have sandwiches,” Brooks said. “My main job is making drinks, doing the register or washing dishes. It’s not super glamorous but I enjoy it.”
What is your favorite thing about working in food service?
“I like the feeling of accomplishment I feel when we’ve just had a rush and I’ve just made a bunch of drinks successfully. I also like when you’ve had a good, solid customer interaction.”
What’s it like to interact with other students and faculty?
“All of my coworkers are students as well and we commiserate together. If we have downtime we’ll do our homework together. With students who come in, we all need our caffeine fixes. They’ll say ‘I have a test today’ and we’ll bond over that. You can really relate to other students who come in and need that caffeine fix.”
Do you have a significant connection with food?
“I really enjoy cooking and I enjoy reading cookbooks. I think it’s really fun. I really enjoy food. I enjoy eating it, talking about it, I enjoy making it, and I also like sharing it with people. It’s a communal thing, it brings people together.”
KSU Dairy Bar
Chloe Shearon is a junior in bakery science & management, the only 4-year program of its kind in the United States. She is an employee at the KSU Dairy Bar in Call Hall.
“Call Hall Dairy Bar serves ice cream that’s made on-campus at the K-State dairy,” Shearon said. “We have shakes, floats, malts, all your good ice cream treats. We also serve breakfast and lunch on weekdays. We sell milk, cheese, and meat made by K-State students.
What is your favorite thing about working in food service?
“I really like it when I see the same people come in multiple times. I only work Mondays and Fridays, so I get to see some of the regulars. You get to know some of the professors a little bit better. There’s a lot of locals who come in and buy their meat and cheese [there].”
What is your on-the-job pet peeve?
“I don’t like it when people come in and they make a really big mess and leave melted ice cream [on the table]. I understand people are busy, especially parents with little kids. I get it. But, I appreciate it when people throw away their broken ice cream cone or clean up after themselves.”
What is your favorite thing to eat at the Dairy Bar?
“I really like the After Dinner Mint ice cream. It’s like a mint base with these little mint chips, almost like an Andes mint. It’s really good. Or, there’s one called Sugar Cookie Crumble. It’s like cookie dough but with sugar cookie dough instead of chocolate chip.”
Vista Food Truck
Spoon K-State’s very own Tarra Rotstein is a sophomore in agribusiness and is a server at the Vista Food Truck in Bosco Plaza. She also manages social media for the food truck and Vista Drive-In.
“When I’m on the truck working, I’m taking orders from customers, and I usually do some stocking of the bottled drinks in the truck,” Rotstein said. “When I’m in store I do sales also. Pretty simple stuff.”
What’s it like to interact with other students and faculty?
“It’s cool! I actually wear a hat in the truck, and a lot of times when you wear a hat no one really recognizes you. One of my advisers for Sigma Alpha pulled through and I said hello, the whole spiel, and it was funny because I was like, ‘Wait, I know you!'”
What’s your favorite thing to eat or drink at Vista?
“Vista has the best ice cream, hands down. We have hot fudge brownies that come à la mode, they’re really good. Our shakes are good. Honestly, I love our grilled cheese, which is funny because we don’t serve as many of those as we do burgers.”
What do you want to do after you graduate?
“I would hopefully like to work for a big ag company, not exactly sure which one that would be, either doing social media or public relations, marketing.”
All of these ladies like their jobs and enjoy working with the K-State family. Whether you want a cappuccino, locally-produced dairy, or Vista burgers, you can get your fix on-campus and support student jobs at the same time. Eat ’em up, KSU.