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Hampton U. Cafeteria Gets Clean Bill of Health

Photo credit: Stephanie Johnson During the inspections, students such as senior English major Katrina Alexander (right), continued to eat in the cafeteria while others sought alternative food options.

By Daarel Burnette II
Black College Wire

The Hampton University administration seized the Oct. 22 issue of The Hampton Script, because the student editors did not run a letter to the campus community from Acting President Dr. JoAnn W. Haysbert on the front page, as Haysbert requested. Instead, it ran on Page 3. Her statement, which is linked to below, was a comment on the subject of this article, which appeared in the confiscated issue.

Hampton University's administration can finally exhale. On Oct. 16, Gourmet Services Inc., the food provider with whom the university contracts, passed health inspections, sparing it from having to close its doors to the 3,400 students who rely on its services daily.

The cafeteria had been cited by inspectors from the Virginia Department of Health on Sept. 11 for violating 30 provisions of the health code, seven of which were critical violations.They ranged from workers chewing gum to improper refrigeration of meat.

The number is "definitely above average. There are typically only two to three" critical violations, John Chellenberg, the environmental health manager, said.

Since March, the cafeteria has been cited for 102 violations in four investigations, raising the eyebrows of many administrators and concerned parents.

But to many students, the citations came only as verification that the cafeteria isn't up to health standards.

Photo credit: Stephanie Johnson Gourmet Services, Inc., the food service provider for the university, has begun implementing changes to fix the violations, including building a trough to catch leakage from the pipe.

"I'm not surprised at all," said Chuck Stokes, a senior biology major from Columbia, Md. "I'm surprised . . . it's not shut down already."

Although the health inspections took place early in September, many students didn't find out about the results until it was publicized Oct. 3 on Channel 13's news.

"There was no town meeting with the students," Stokes complained. Instead, (the administration) swept it under the carpet."

Brian Carratway, a sophomore architecture major from Cincinnati, agreed.

"It's sad that people still aren't aware they've failed the violations," he said last week.

Carratway's visits to the cafe dwindled after he witnessed his roommate almost choke on a piece of plastic wrap he found in his fettuccine.

According to Chellenberg, the environmental health manager, the number of health violations stemmed from a combination of the cafeteria's location under a 130-year-old dormitory, Virginia Cleveland Hall, and bad management.

Students complained about seeing dead flies in dinner plates and roaches crawling across salad bars and from under plates. One student witnessed a roach trapped in the plastic wrap covering a cup of pudding.

According to Chellenberg, roaches and flies can contaminate food they touch because they carry germs.

"In a dormitory, students bring food up into their rooms, which invites problems with roaches," Chellenberg said.

Alvin Branch, the Gourmet Services vice president of special events, said that the cafeteria has installed a new roach eradication program that baits roaches with poison. n.

"It's nothing that is harmful to the food," he said, adding that "everything is done at night."

In preparation for the health inspection on Thursday, Hampton University implemented several physical improvements to the cafeterias, including repainting walls and replacing cracked tiles.

Branch said that because the building is so old, his firm has to maintain a high standard of sanitation and is constantly repairing it. But he maintained that "the building is not an excuse. It's old, but we can work around it."

Chellenberg also attributed a bulk of the violations on bad management of the cafeteria.

"The unfortunate part (of this situation) is the fact that the violations that were found could have been easily avoided had there been proper supervision in place and training of the employees," said Chellenberg.

But, according to Branch, poor management is not "the crux of the matter." Branch complained that after every academic year, 30 to 40 percent of Gourmet Services employees leave for other jobs when the cafeteria closes in June, often not returning.

Photo credit: Stephanie Johnson A chef in the cafeteria cuts roast beef in the kitchen.

Now, in addition to going through a two-hour training session followed by written test, new food-handling employees can't serve food unless they are with an experienced employee, according to Branch. He also said that all employees must now wear gloves, no matter what part of the cafeteria they're working in.

"Gloves are a good safety factor because we handle [such a large] volume of food," Branch said.

Gourmet Services Inc. has also made internal improvements in training the "transitional pool of employees," according to Valerie Goldston, senior vice president of Gourmet Services. The company recently sent five employees to Hampton for certification classes. It also hired a health and safety expert to train and retrain employees.

"We've been doing the training but we need to do it more often," Goldston said. "We want to be sure the food is handled properly."

Charles Wooding, assistant vice president of business affairs and the administrator who oversees cafeteria operations, admitted that the university could have done a better job in pressuring Gourmet Services to fix the violations earlier in the year.

"This does put a strain on our relationship" with Gourmet Services, he said. "Our first concern is students and how well they're fed."

The Hampton University administration kept constant watch as Gourmet Services worked furiously to fix the problems cited in the health report. On Oct. 14, the university inspected the cafeteria until 2 a.m.

"We are working diligently to correct what the inspector has identified as health code violations," said Dr. JoAnn Haysbert, acting president.

"Am I pleased with the report? Of course not. Am I satisfied with what we're doing now to improve the cafeteria? Absolutely." Other students were skeptical about the fixes.

"I'm pleased about the cafeteria passing," said Lindell Toombs, student government association president and senior political science major from Newport News, Va. "I'm dissatisfied that it took health inspections to get the cafeteria to clean up its act. Now, I hope that the cafeteria will remain clean."

Daarel Burnette II is a student at Hampton University who is Campus Editor of The Hampton Script.

Posted Oct. 23, 2003