by Andrew Rowan ’19, Editor-in-Chief

SAGE Dining doesn’t have the word cafeteria in its vocabulary, said Moorestown Friends SAGE Dining Manager Jessica O’Donnell.  It’s café or servrey, she said. “We’re trying to be inviting and make it a nice place.”

After a long standing, 25-year relationship with MFS’s previous food service provider, Healthy Foods by Choice, SAGE Dining brings a different approach to the stereotypical school lunch.

THE SPACE

It’s not just the food that’s different; SAGE Dining also made physical changes to the dining hall space. Different serving stations were added, overhead heat lamps, a new floating soup and salad bar, and an open air cooler were all installed.

These changes were made after working with the school to better the traffic flow in the room, said SAGE Northeast Region Area Manager Tom Ankner.

“It’s more of mall food court kind of feel,” said SAGE district manager Charlie Bunin.  You’re able to walk around and graze and try everything that we’re doing here.”

He said instead of students just seeing one thing on the menu, they’ll be presented with several options. SAGE hopes this set-up will allow for less wait times, a major issue students had with Healthy Foods by Choice. Bunin said there may be lines at the beginning of the school year, but thinks the lines will ease as the community discovers the different offerings.

O’Donnell said she may have found some of the old decorations in the closet from Healthy Foods by Choice: “It was a little frightening. It kind of reminded me of my Grandma’s house.”

She said different SAGE artwork and infographics were added around the space instead to give it a nicer café feel.

The snack bar in the back corner of the space was also converted into an office for the dining staff.

DEFINITIONS

The company uses different terminology when it comes to different aspects of the cafe, traffic flow, and nutrition.

Main Ingredient – The station that houses the main meal for that day. It’s a complete meal in different styles like Mediterranean, Italian, Asian, and more. O’Donnell will be cooking.

Transit Fare – Grab-and-go, packaged food displayed in an open-air cooler. It could be compared to the middle cooler in Wawa. Though sandwiches and salads are packaged, they’re still made from scratch. SAGE Dining makes all of its food from scratch. There will be no made-to-order sandwich counter, but the company will take suggestions on what sandwiches to put in the cooler.

Cross Roads – Food truck-style food such as fries, chicken fingers, and cheesesteaks. This counter will be available every other day, switching with the Manja Manja station.

Manja Manja Station – Pizza and Italian station. O’Donnel said that pizza will be available every other day, and every time there will be a gluten-free pizza available as well. Along with pizza, an Italian dish such as a ziti or rice dish will be available.

Batch Cooking – “The food is made fresh all the time,” said Bunin. “You might be waiting a little bit, but when we start getting to understand the environment, we will be able to cook a little faster.”

O’Donnell said that Upper School students don’t want the same food that was made before the lower school students came in, so her team will be cooking new batches of food throughout the day. She said the restocking process will get faster as the company sees what stations each school likes best.

SAGE does not serve anything in steam-wells or serve with ice cream scoopers, said O’Donnell and Bunin, who are both chefs. “We want to express what we made and what it looks like for the customer to come and see,” said Bunin, who also added the food will be served in vessels that are more appealing.

SAGE Performance Spotlight – “It’s a menu program that is beneficial for those that are involved in sports,” said O’Donnell, who continued that the company will work into that program further into the school year.

STAFFING

The SAGE Dining staff at MFS has seven members, four of whom are returning from the 2017-2018 school year to work as cashiers: Andrea Ohanian, Mary Ellen Murray, Kelly Weber, and Charlene Koch. O’Donnell said she hopes that the relationships between the community and the staff in the Dining Hall will continue to be strong.

“It’s a nice mix,” said O’Donnell. “We have some people that are familiar with the company and some women that are familiar with the school.”

Though O’Donnell is the manager, she also is the chef. Before joining SAGE and coming to MFS, she worked at Good Dog, a scratch cooking restaurant in Philadelphia. She was also on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

Bunin said O’Donnell was the type of person they wanted for the position, because she hasn’t been in the school food system and brings fresh ideas to school lunch. “We took her in and tried to mold her ideas at what she did at the restaurant and cafe into our cafe.”

“I don’t come into this with any sort of corporate or mass production mentality,” said O’Donnell. She was excited to find SAGE Dining because the company will allow her to still cook high-quality food from scratch, but with more family-friendly hours than a restaurant chef. O’Donnell has a six-year-old son [sq] at home. 

FEEDBACK & TECHNOLOGY

Since everything is made from scratch, the café will have a touchpad that will allow you to filter out allergens from the day’s menu. The feature, which is also available on the SAGE mobile app and online menu, clearly shows people with allergies what they are allowed to have.

The menu rotates on a four-week schedule, and O’Donnell said after the first few weeks she can make adjustments as needed: “If you’re not digging what’s on the menu, I’ll change it.”

She said putting together the first month’s menu was sort of like “shooting a dart in the dark” as she tried to guess what students like.

There are a variety of ways to give feedback on SAGE, a testament to the fact that the company wants to hear your feedback, said Bunin. Students can leave comments on a feedback board to the left of the dish return, stop in and see O’Donnell, or send notes via the SAGE Dining mobile app, which will be replied to within 24 hours, Bunin said.

EDUCATION

SAGE doesn’t want the cafe to be simply the place to get food, they also want to educate.

Every day, a “Near To Here” board will display where the produce in the day’s lunch came from. Everything is fresh and sourced locally, O’Donnell said.

The company plans to host educational sessions during lunch. Bunin said they might display a raw chicken and explain where the edible parts are. Another example might show how the pilgrims may have cooked the first Thanksgiving food with what they had available to them.

Lastly, SAGE wants to work with the school to find students interested in culinary or food service and possibly host workshops or events.

“The bottom line is food is fun. That’s why I got into this business. It’s fun and it’s interesting,” said O’Donnell.

This article originally appeared in a September 7, 2018 print edition.