Week 2 @ OU!

So for our second week here at OU, Kelsey and I got to spend some time at Couch Restaurants (the main meal hall), plus a tour at US Foods and some exploring at the Health Science center in OKC!

On Monday, we met up with Claire who gave us the run down of how scheduling works for the summer months here, and a few details on some other things. There are three sections in total with the other two being called 'sizzle' and 'home'. However, during the summer months when they're only running camps they have a rotating menu with limited options so none of the regular places are open for us to eat at. So in the view (which essentially holds a bunch of TVs and one giant screen), there are about 3-4 different places you can choose to eat at during the academic year. Freshens, La Roma, and Athens are three of the main ones located in this section. In 'home' they have a sweet shoppe section which normally holds all the deserts and treats, there is 'vegetation station' where they cook vegetarian and vegan meals, chef's choice with entrees and side dishes, plus there are also long bars with any and all imaginable ingredients for salads as well as some fruit. Lastly in the sizzle section they have a smokehouse where you can get hamburgers and steak, shanghai stir-fry which you can make your own creation or they have entrees out like fried rice, and there is Casa del Sol which is a Mexican spot that makes burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, and a bunch of other stuff with tons of toppings as well. And the food is delicious!

Claire also showed us the system they use during summer which essentially allows for employees to go in themselves and locate shifts that are available. There are typically two 4 hour shifts (breakfast and lunch) then a 3.5 hour shift in the evenings (supper) and there is a max of 40 hrs a week. Through this program employees can see their schedule which is updated daily, swap/drop shifts, take vacation time, etc. Claire also explained how they operate the lines during the summer time. So they have 7 in total, and they start with opening the 3 lines in the 'home' section then open them outwards as it becomes more and more busy. When it starts to slow they close from the outside in which allows them to clean up more quickly. After talking with Claire, we met up with Frannie who works with food costing and labor. She explained to us (as did Claire a little bit) how they determine staffing certain sections depending on the flow of people at certain times during the day. During the lunch rush we got to observe the supervisors out on the floor and how they place their employees. After that, we headed back to the intern office and just worked on our project and that was it for our first day at Couch!

Onto Tuesday, and this time we were with Sam Ford, the manager/director of that location. He gave us a project to work on with Frannie in order to manually input total sales against labor costs and determine what the labor percentage was. So we got to observe how they utilize the numbers and come up with this data which can be used to determine the amount of revenue that is going towards paying their employees. We also got to meet a bunch of the front of house supervisors during the lunch rush again, who we also observed staff the lines for that day and keep everything in check. Later in the afternoon we sat in on two meetings. The first was to work through issues they were having through catering services for RA's during the academic year, and the second was informing Claire (she's in charge of scheduling during the summer who we met Monday) on the spread sheet and numbers we had come up with in the morning. That got us through our second day at Couch.

Wednesday was our day to tour the Health Science center and US Foods! To start we were at the campus first and met Dave. He's in charge of the three locations at this site. We got to look at Beaker's Cafe first which is located in their union building. There isn't a lot of on campus housing here, especially since it's mostly an older group of students so that's why there are limited locations to eat at. Beaker's does just as much as some locations here at the Norman campus though while also competing with hospital cafeteria locations. It consists of a small Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, as well as casa del sol and couch express items. They try to make it as familiar as possible so students recognize the name when they come from Norman to OKC. hey also get to come up with new recipes every summer when it slows down to try and bring something new to the table. We then got to look at Dave's Place which is an even smaller cafe located in the physicians building, then we went to the cancer center where the Healthy Hearth is located. There is so much decor including art pieces specifically designed for the building, a baby grand piano that plays itself (!!!!), statues everywhere, and so much more. It is drop dead gorgeous and the care in the design is so apparent and they have done absolutely everything to make the patients feel as comfortable as possible.

So onto US Foods, our final stop! This is the main supplier for OU. They actually have to go through a bidding process for contracts of 5 years with other companies. we first sat down with the president of the Oklahoma location as well as Amanda, the director of sales. They spoke to us giving us some general information. They are 26th for sales across the nation for all businesses, and second in the food services department (Sysco is the only one ahead). The Oklahoma location is also the 6th largest producer of sales for US Foods even though they are competing with locations in LA, Miami, Chicago, and others. So they do quite well for themselves and mostly supply over 4000 customers in the state alone. They said they go through about 55,000 cases a day (sometimes more) and 240,000 flats a week, so they are constantly moving products and there is so much that goes into it I don't even know where to begin! We then toured the actual inside of the storage part with Mike, our tour guide. We got to see the room which stores all the machinery, dry storage, where they keep their trucks, as well as the inside of the cold storage which is kept at 36 degrees F at all times (so when they're loading/unloading produce it stays at the same temp no matter where it is). So that was our tour and they gave us a little treat basket and everything! It was super interesting to see the process behind how the food operations here at OU actually order and receive their products. It allows for you to understand why delays and mistakes occur and why certain processes have to maintained (which most customers will just complain over rather then attempt to understand why). By far my favorite part of the internship to date.

So Thursday was our final day at Couch! We started off at the front of the house with Luann who is the sweetest woman I have ever met in my life! Her job allows her to interact with most of the students and she is so friendly, kind, and sweet to everyone who goes in and out of the building. She takes either student or camp cards to swipe people in or cash, so me and Kelsey get to see her pretty much every day. Afterwards we got to chat with Jamie who is the supervisor in the actual kitchen area. She went over the "Chef's Choice" menu which is section in the home area of Couch. During the school year they have a ton more options then the two cycles they go through for the camps, as well as a much higher quality of food options. It's also served buffet style where students serve themselves, however for camps they have people working the lines to serve the kids. The quality and effort put in by all of the staff here is phenomenal. Everyone is so dedicated and genuinely loves their job. Plus the quality of the food is the best I've seen anywhere. She explained that most days during the summer there are usually about 4 staff working the kitchen depending on how busy they're expecting it to be. They also used this time to revamp the menus and creating some new options. Next we moved onto the bakery section where we met the second cutest woman named Laysie. She's this little asian woman who is in charge of this area. If orders come in from catering she deals with them, as well as preparing biscuits, rolls, cookies, cake, and more for the sweet shop. Today she was working on cutting some pie slices for a conference that the university is holding of UAW (United Auto Workers), and preparing some samples for a wedding couple looking for sweets.

Our last stop of the day was at the storage area where we met Mike. He went over the process for placing an order (which they do all online through US Foods) and told us mainly the chef and one other woman during the school year determine what needs to be ordered. They do inventory every Monday, Thursday, and Friday and receive shipments around 6am from US Foods every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's the same during the year and typically they have students deal with the storing of the product. We got to check out some of the receiving slips that come with the flats that are delivered, and again all these processes take place through the C-bord program that we learned about during our third day here. That covered pretty much everything we needed to look at at Couch! That day we got to check out the big union clothing store sale and stocked up on OU year to sport around campus! Boomer Sooner's already! Friday was just our day to work on our project in the office so we pretty much finished up most of it for the Flying Cow Cafe. That about sums up or second week here!