Many students have voiced their concern with Aramark’s decision to close the Vegan Café for weeknight dinners. As a member of the WSA and CLAW (Compassionate Living and Animal Awareness at Wesleyan), I would now like to do so. This past Sunday Tim Reiss, the Director of Dining Services on campus, came to address the WSA concerning the recent dining changes.
Mr. Reiss stated that the café was closed because the Fire Marshall demanded that oil not be used in sautéing on the third floor of the Campus Center. Had not oil been used to cook in the Vegan Café for the last year and a half? Is oil not used to cook at lunch? I am not questioning that the use of oil in sautéing poses a fire hazard. My parents have owned and operated their own restaurant chain for over twenty years. I am very familiar with restaurant/fire safety issues. It is a little strange that the use of oil would suddenly become a point of contention. Especially since there had been no previous mention of this issue.
Mr. Reiss also discussed other problems associated with the Vegan Café including space and equipment. He mentioned the availability of only one oven in the café. Although the Vegan Café is lacking in terms of space and equipment, the café has been operating for the past year and a half satisfactorily with these conditions during lunch. Since only the stir-fry option had been available at dinner, the use of an oven is not an issue.
Finally, Mr. Reiss stated an interest in phasing out the use of the current Campus Center in light of planning for the new University Center. However, the construction of the University Center will not begin, at best, until next year and the completion of the project will be many years down the road. Thus, given that there are students who currently need to eat at this University, minimizing the use of the Campus Center may not be the best decision. In response, Mr. Reiss states, there are many new dining options on campus, including the new Summerfields. For vegans and vegetarians, this is anything but a consolation. Summerfields currently operates on a weekly menu. If you are vegan, you have one option for a five-day period and on the weekends the menu does not have a single vegan option. If you’re vegan and have gone to Summerfields over the past two weeks you ate rice and vegetables: a nutritionally insufficient meal to be eating for a week straight.
At the WSA meeting, Tim Reiss was very optimistic, promising that whatever has to be done to meet student needs will be done. These promises may be empty. Some might remember the circumstance with the Vegan Café towards the end of last year the café’s existence is by no means sure safe. Dining services, with absolutely no notification prior to winter break, closed the Vegan Café and the Campus Center at night. This was not mentioned to the WSA. I find it very troubling that dining services has done nothing to make any effort to accommodate the dietary needs of a fairly substantial minority on this campus. Especially, after the Vegan Café had evolved into such a staple for vegan eating on campus.
Some might think, where does this person get off thinking that vegans and vegetarians are warranted such attention by dining services? Even if I ignore the ethical, religious, and health related reasons for choosing a vegan or vegetarian diet, my response is quite simple. Relatively speaking, I pay the same amount of money to eat on this campus as anyone else whether they eat meat or not. Therefore, I am entitled to somewhat comparable food options (I say somewhat, because I am well aware of the constraints brought on by a vegan diet). By closing the Vegan Café for dinner and providing virtually no other alternative except rice and vegetables for an entire week, Aramark chose to ignore my needs and demands as a buyer. In other words, the vegan and vegetarian community is being completely and unabatedly ripped-off.
I encourage anyone who is upset with the current vegan and vegetarian-eating situation on campus to sign CLAW’s petition either at the Campus Center, at the Vegan Café or at Mocon. The petitions will be brought to the next Dining Committee meeting this coming Friday.
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