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Category: Rich Turnbull–Dining Services

End of Year Meal Plan Options  June 1st, 2011

As Spring Term draws to a close, there are some options for managing your meal plan.  Since the Orange Rewards plan carries over from year-to-year as long as you remain affiliated with OSU, it may be beneficial to save your Orange Rewards account and spend down your Meal Plan account.  If you are in a situation where you may have Dining Dollars left on your meal plan at the end of the term, you will have an opportunity to help others who do need food assistance. Read the rest of this entry »


Food and Culture  May 5th, 2011

I find it interesting that given the amazing differences in various world cultures that there is something so very similar in our foods. Take empanadas for instance. Almost every culture has food encased in pastry whether it is an empanada of Central and South America, pastels in Brazil, pasties in Ireland and Wales, boerek in Lebanon, samosas in South Asia, potstickers in China, and dozens of other varieties of meat or bean stuffed pastries. Read the rest of this entry »


Mocktails: Not to be disregarded  March 8th, 2011

Spring is a great time to explore new beverages.  Contrary to urban legend, a great beverage doesn’t require alcohol.  A bartender friend of mine once worked for TGI Fridays.  They have a recipe book with about 200 alcohol free mocktails and spend as much time learning to build alcohol-free beverages as they do alcoholic beverages.  Read the rest of this entry »


You’re Invited: Soul Food Cafe  February 11th, 2011

On Wednesday, February 23rd from 5:00pm to 8:00pm UHDS will host “Soul Food Cafe:  A Journey through Culture and Cuisine” at McNary Dining Center. Soul Food Cafe celebrates Black History Month and is one of several “Journeys through Culture and Cuisine” that UHDS has hosted over the last few years. It will feature slow smoked Virginia ham, Southern Fried Chicken, Tofu Creole, Collard Greens, Fried Okra, Bananas Foster, and homemade New Orleans -Style Beignets.

Each of these cultural events is an outgrowth of our Diversity Initiative which is a multi-faceted approach to creating communities that are open, caring, and supportive of students from all cultures.  As a department, our Diversity Initiative is aspirational.  We know we have more work to do to create inclusive environments, but we are dedicated and committed to the journey and we ask the rest of the campus community to join us and support us as we travel on our journey.

Working with our campus partners brings great energy to these events and I appreciate everyone’s involvement.  Come join us for at McNary Dining Center for Soul Food Café and mellow out to the blues of the Ty Curtis Band.


Adjusting your Meal Plan to Meet your Needs  January 11th, 2011

What we eat and when we eat are very personal and each of us has unique dietary needs which means that no single meal plan is going to perfectly fit your situation.

So at the end of fall term some of us had large meal plan balances and some of us used up all of our Dining Dollars and added money to our Orange Rewards account to get through the end of fall term.  Read the rest of this entry »


A Taste of the Indian Ocean: Insight into Journey through Culture and Cuisine  November 1st, 2010

On Wednesday, November 17th from 5:00pm to 8:00pm UHDS will host “A Taste of the Indian Ocean:  A Journey through Culture and Cuisine at Marketplace West. A Taste of the Indian Ocean celebrates international week on campus and is one of several “Journeys through Culture and Cuisine” that UHDS has hosted over the last few years. It will feature foods from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and East Africa. 

Each of these cultural events is an outgrowth of our Diversity Initiative which is a multi-faceted approach to creating communities that are open, caring and supportive of students from all cultures.  Read the rest of this entry »


Welcome from Dining  October 4th, 2010

As we are ending the second week of classes, I would like to formally welcome you or welcome you back to campus on behalf of the UHDS Dining staff.   We’ve been busy over the summer working on a variety of projects to help make your dining experiences in the dining centers and Bing’s Café great ones.  I’d like to share a few highlights of what is new for 2010-11. Read the rest of this entry »


Rich Turnbull–Dining Hours and Operating Expenses  May 7th, 2010

To the residents of the UHDS community.

I have received a number of questions this year about our decision to reduce the hours of operation in the dining centers this year.  I first want to acknowledge that we understand the challenge limiting hours can create for students who have very full schedules with classes, athletics, jobs or other time commitments. It can also simply be inconvenient for those students who prefer to eat whenever they want to eat. Having said that, we felt it was important to share more of the story about some very difficult decisions we had to make this year with regard to our overall budget.

It is important for folks to know that University Housing & Dining Services (UHDS) is a self-funded auxiliary organization whose primary source of revenue is from the sale of room and meal contracts. The department does not receive funds from the university nor from the State of Oregon to support the operation. As an auxiliary, UHDS is mandated to contribute annually into building and equipment reserve accounts in order to fund major renovations needed to keep each of the residence halls, cooperative houses and family housing apartments up to current standards.  In addition, many of our facilities were built in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s and have needed significant renovation and infrastructure upgrades.  Those expenses in addition to rising operating expenses have created pressure to increase room and meal rates.

For further context, the primary operating expenses of UHDS are food, labor and capital improvement expenses.  As you would guess, the longer the dining facilities are open, the more the food and labor costs will increase.  Since most of our dining income is fixed given how the room and board is billed, there is not a positive correlation between the number residents utilizing the dining center and the income that brings to the department. Although we can always look for and find creative solutions to work more efficiently and effectively, it many times comes down to the simple equation of income and expense. As such, to meet the increasing expenses, we have a choice of either increasing the overall rates to the students or reducing some of the major expenses which in turn translates into a reduction in some services.

Because this was ultimately going to effect the residents, we wanted to gain input from the students before the decision was made. In a meeting with student resident leaders of the Residence Hall Association last spring, the student representatives clearly articulated that holding room and meal rates as low as possible was a top priority. In order to help minimize the increase in rates to students, UHDS made the decision to reduce some areas of service instead of passing on the full brunt of the additional expense to residential students.  As part of this decision, a number of positions were eliminated and hours of operation were reduced.  Closing dining operations at 10:00pm instead of 1:00am allowed UHDS to save enough money to replace roofs on two residence halls and replace the furniture in another.

Many residents are probably already aware of what dining options are open after 7pm but students are encouraged to check out the following website for current hours: http://oregonstate.edu/foodatosu/full-hours. What you will find there is that 10 of the 17 UHDS restaurant or convenience store operations are open past 7:00pm.  And while again we acknowledge that these hours might not meet everyone’s dining expectations, we felt it was important to share that the folks at UHDS are working hard to be good stewards of your room and meal dollars.

~Rich Turnbull, Associate Director of Housing & Dining Services


Rich Turnbull–Soul Food Cafe 2010  March 5th, 2010

So, last Wednesday UHDS hosted Soul Food Café at McNary Dining for the 3rd year in a row.  Soul Food Café is one of several “Journeys through Culture and Cuisine” that UHDS has hosted over the last few years and last week’s event was designed to celebrate Black History month.  Each of these cultural events is an outgrowth of our Diversity Initiative which is a multi-faceted approach to creating communities that are open, caring and supportive of students from all cultures.  As a department, our Diversity Initiative is aspirational.  We know we have more work to do to creative inclusive environments, but we are dedicated and committed to the journey and we ask the rest of the campus community to join us and support us as we travel on our journey.

Working with our campus partners brings great energy to these events and I appreciate everyone’s involvement.  The Tye Curtis blues band also brought energy to last week’s event and they rocked the house.

The menu created by our culinary team was also truly exceptional and coming up real soon will be available daily at Cooper’s Creek BBQ which will open next month at Marketplace West.

Rich Turnbull

Just another person loving the Cooper's Creek ribs.

Just another person loving the Cooper's Creek ribs.


Rich Turnbull–From Farm to the Table  November 19th, 2009

On Tuesday, Jeff La Magra and I were invited by Stahlbush Farms to tour their processing plant and biogas energy plant.  Stahlbush farms which is located just the other side of the Willamette River is the national leader in sustainable agriculture and food production.  Their biogas plant is the first of its kind in North America and generates enough electricity to provide service to 1100 homes by digesting the vegetable waste from its processing plant to create gas used to heat their plant and power generators to generate electricity.  We had a very interesting tour and as we continue to reach out to local farmers and ranchers to supply food for the 9500+ meals we prepare and serve every day, it made me think about a question we received the other day about how we go about purchasing the foods we use.

A few years ago we made a conscious decision to build our meal plan program around culinary excellence.  We recruited and eventually were successful in hiring Jeff La Magra who serves as our Director of Culinary Development.  Jeff heads a culinary faculty made up of our registered dietician, Tara Sanders; David Lewis and Dale Lawson at McNary Dining; Shakoda Hill at Marketplace West; and Bruce Hoerauf and Nathan McClure of Arnold Center and OSU Catering.  This creative team of culinarians works with local brokers, vendors, farmers, and ranchers to product test, evaluate and purchase the highest quality ingredients available.  We have an inventory of 7000-8000 food items in stock at any one time and over 450 items on our menus available on any given day.  It takes several vendors to supply all of our needs in order for us to provide our residents with the wide variety of choices available each day.

We buy locally when possible because we believe this is in alignment with the land grant mission of OSU.  We also know locally grown foods are generally fresher, of higher quality, last longer, support the local farm economy, and help in reducing our carbon footprint.  Our apples and pears come from Riverwood Orchard and Farms, much of our beef comes from Country Natural Beef, pork from local farms, lamb from Rainsheep Farms, berries from Willamette Fruit, bread from Williams Bakery, milk and dairy products from Spring Valley Dairy, cheeses from Tillamook and Rogue Valley and other local creameries, gelato from a gelaterria in Eugene, and a wide variety of other wonderful products from local businesses.

We use the power of a national Group Purchasing Organization, HPSI/CURB to ensure that we get the best pricing for the products we specify and we negotiate directly with national manufacturers to provide deviated pricing and marketing allowances which help reduce the cost of food to the students we serve by tens of thousands of dollars each year.  Our grocery bill is roughly $5 million per year and we serve approximately 2 million meals per year.  To prepare and serve those meals we employ nearly 100 full time staff members and about 600 part-time student employees.

Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions and questions are always welcome.  Please don’t hesitate to call me or email me.

Best regards,

Rich Turnbull

Associate Director

University Housing And Dining Services

Richard.turnbull@oregonstate.edu

541-737-0689