American University's Terrace Dining Room recently underwent a major rennovation. Photos courtesy of American University.

This past August, diners at American University in Washington D.C. may have noticed some changes to the Terrace Dining room, a staple foodservice location on campus.

The dining room design process actually began about two years ago, with intentional thought put into each and every aspect of the updated dining room. The main goal was to create a space on campus for inclusive dining, regardless of dietary restrictions. In addition, sustainability goals were considered and the team aimed to use the dining hall to build up the campus community.

Eight overarching goals packed into one redesign

Ann Marie Powell, senior director of dining and auxiliary services at the university noted that there were eight main goals going into the redesign.

The first of these goals, said Powell, was to enhance the overall student dining experience.

“We really wanted to create a welcoming and engaging atmosphere that fosters community, social interaction and a positive dining experience,” she said. “That was our first goal.”

Terrace Dining room seeks to serve as a community hub on campus.

The renovation also kept health and nutrition in mind with the intent of providing a variety of diverse and nutritionally balanced meals for diners.

The renovation also seemed like the perfect time to focus on the university’s, and Chartwell’s, sustainability goals as well.

One change was the addition of front-of-house composting. While the university has composted back-of-house food waste for quite some time, the redesign of the dining room felt like the perfect time to bring that sustainability initiative to the front-of house.

"So, we wanted to implement environmentally friendly practices in our food sourcing, waste management and you know just to reduce our ecological footprint,” said Powell.

The next goal of the redesign, which embodies Chartwells' mission of inclusivity in dinning, was to provide a range of choices, for all diners, and serve as a way to introduce them to new cultural cuisine.

Terrace Dining Room offers a diverse range of cuisine from different cultures.

And technology definitely played a role in the changes in Terrance Dining Hall—the dining team wanted to leverage technology to meet the demand for convenience from students as well as streamline operational processes.

“We wanted to utilize technology to streamline our operation, provide some efficiencies in there and just improve that whole dining experience,” said Powell.

In addition, the technology used in the dining room allows for quick feedback from diners themselves.

The dining team saw the upgraded dining hall as a perfect avenue for educational culinary opportunities, including visits from celebrity chefs and teaching kitchens events. And cost of meals was an important consideration, with the team wanting to ensure the dining room was affordable for students.

The last two goals of the redesign were to meet the demands of both, diners and the greater community at large, and a way the team hopes to accomplish this is through the flexibility of the redesigned dining hall

“Students, that's our main focus. But we do look at our total community, whether it's our faculty staff or guests visiting the campus. And then last would be just some flexibility and accessibility,” said Powell.

Offering flexibility and catering to diner demand

One unique aspect about the redesign and the dining stations at Terrace Dining Room, is that they are set up in a way that makes it easy to offer flexibility or adaptation. The stations are easily adjustable, allowing the dining team to switch up concepts based on time of day or feedback from diners.  With the renovation and innovated menus, food options were actually increased by about 20% at the dining room.

“We could create two stations, or we could change it and do something else different with it. So, it allowed us to just have these open stations that weren't designated just to be for this one thing,” said Powell.

Each station is built to be easily adjustable, if the university decides to switch up its offerings.

“Each station is to change it as we needed. So, all of our all of our wells and our hot and cold wells, we can change the service style at any at any time,” said Lou Christopher, resident dining manager for Chartwells at American University, “And then just even in the kitchen, in the production area, just making sure that was a little bit more organized.”

Feedback on the changes at the dining room has been very positive, said Powell, and the team has actually leaned into that feedback by creating a dining student advisory board, allowing diners to be directly involved in menu development.

There were some challenges along the way, but the dining team navigated through them with the help of an all-hands-on-deck team and through partnerships. Christopher said the biggest challenge was navigating the actual construction, in a timely manner and in such a way that allowed the team to continue to serve students.

“We just reconfigured everything. It was just a tighter space. And then I guess it was with like five weeks left in the semester,” he said. “We closed the whole dining hall and then moved into a temporary dining space, just to allow the construction team the opportunity to get the work done and be open in time for the next fall.”

Expanding allergy-friendly offerings to promote inclusive dining

Terrace Dining Room seeks to provide offerings for a range of dietary rescritions, whether due to cultural or religious beliefs or food allergies.

At the heart of the redesign was the goal of expanding allergy-friendly options and creating a more inclusive dining experience for students and other community members. One aspect that was important to the team was ensuring that the space’s design was set up to avoid cross-contamination and prioritize food safety. During the renovation, the team expanded its Kosher offerings by including a free-standing Kosher kitchen and revamped its allergen-free station, Delicious Without. The main difference in these upgraded concepts is that they now own their own space completely, limiting cross contact with allergens.

For the Kosher Kitchen, the team wanted to ensure that the concept was visible, accessible and Kosher certified. The team worked with the company Star K for the certification process.

“They're really the folks that make sure that we're adhering to all the kosher procedures and they're very reputable in the area and they do a great job,” said Cristopher.

For the Delicious Without station, which serves food that is free of the top nine allergens, the concept now has its completely own separate space.

“It has its own equipment, right? Its own storage, its own production space,” said Cristopher. “I guess the other enhancement, is we test that space weekly for any proteins to be left behind, which would you know, obviously ensure that there's no allergens behind.”

Ultimately, the redesign was very intentional, pushing for inclusive dining, sustainability and a space to build up the campus community through food.

“We really want students to think about this as your kitchen away from home and the whole team is available when you're home and something's not there,” said Powell. “We've worked and we've created that experience where students feel comfortable coming and say you're not offering this or we'd like to see this, that we can able do that. We really want them to think of this as their kitchen away from home.”