With students back on campus and dining halls open at full capacity, UCI Dining is beginning to jump back into how things were run pre-pandemic.
Students are flocking to the dining halls before and after class with all three meal services open at the Anteatery and Brandywine — all while the dining halls are understaffed.
“After being closed for 18 months and coming back, it felt like we were starting over again,” UCI Dining Services Director Lin Tang said. “Our existing staff had to be retrained after all these months and we had to rebuild our student staff.”
Students have been noticing the effect of this setback.
“The lines are always really long to get certain foods and there seems to be less options to what is served,” first year civil engineering student Manulya Gunasekera said. “When I go to get a drink, a lot of the juices are out of service, and the condiments will be out a lot of the time.”
With everyone back, the dining services are attempting to keep up with the number of people eating on campus. Fewer students are applying for jobs this year compared to previous years before the pandemic.
According to first year history student Serenity Taylor, those that have been working under the dining hall services are put under more stress and labor due to being short-staffed.
“There have been times when I have had to do jobs that I normally wouldn’t be required to do because of how short-staffed we are,” Taylor said. “I have had to clean the bathroom multiple times because the dining hall doesn’t have a bathroom service to do that job. There is just more labor and pressure placed on me because of [the lack of employees].”
Taylor has had to walk around the dining hall alone, wiping tables and picking up trash because no one else could. Students saw staff doing multiple jobs during a short period of time.
“I’ve noticed that one staff member will be doing several different jobs during the time I’m at the Anteatery,” Gunasekera said. “I’ll see the same person stacking the cups, serving the food, swiping students in and wiping the tables all while I’m there for about an hour — it’s insane.”
The amount of on-campus dining services that are currently open has been impacted as well.
Retail dining locations currently open on campus with limited hours are Wendy’s, Panda Express, Anthill Pub & Grille, Bento Sushi, Zot n Go, Starbucks at Bio Sci, Med Ed Café, Phoenix Food Court, Side Door and Café Espresso.
According to Tang, Java City Kiosk will reopen on Oct. 25, and other retail dining locations on campus will reopen once more students are hired and trained.
UCI Dining Services have been affected by supply shortages.
“Most supply chains have products on back-order either because manufacturers are behind or are stuck in the shipping containers out at sea,” Tang said. “We are also hearing that some companies also are short on drivers to deliver products to consumers.”
Both of the dining halls used to offer late night services past 8 p.m., but they have been unable to provide this service to students due to staff shortages.
“I wake up around 10 a.m. and I’ll do my school work until 12 p.m., so I eat my first meal at around 1 p.m. My second meal won’t be around 6 p.m. and I don’t want to eat a full meal two hours later, so I can’t eat dinner,” first year undeclared student Cameron Watkins said. “I have no fridge in my room, so I can’t take food back to my dorm. I essentially have to go buy my dinner every night from Chick-Fil-A or In-N-Out, which I am starting to get sick of.”
UCI Dining said that they hope to hire more people as the quarter goes on, in order to fully reopen the services they used to have pre-pandemic. Applications are available on their website under employment options at food.uci.edu.
Sabrina Contreras is a Campus News Intern for the fall 2021 quarter. She can be reached at sabriec1@uci.edu.
