Slideshow: J&H gets facelift

The Louis J. Esposito Dining Court fully opened Tuesday after closing May 14 for reconstruction and renovation. Read the full story here.

J&H cafeteria gets modernized

Click here for a photo slideshow of the new construction.

After cramming what managers called “six months of work” into 18 weeks, the newly renovated Johnson & Hardwick cafeteria is ready for business.

The Louis J. Esposito dining court will operate full service beginning this afternoon, general manager David Tolbert said.

Food stations are placed throughout the larger, new space. A permanent vegetarian and vegan display is the first station diners see upon entering, and it will be equipped with a daily vegetarian cooking display.
As the semester gets underway, Tolbert said new menu options under the Balanced Way program will begin to help students get healthy if they so choose. The program is being driven by a group of professors from Drexel University and Sodexo.

“There’s way more that we can offer than we could before,” Tolbert said, emphasizing that students had previously expressed a desire for healthier fare through comment cards.

Old favorites such as the deli station, fast food station and salad bar have been revamped but will still be offering student favorites. In order to meet the most recent Philadelphia health codes, the deli and fast food stations will no longer be self-service.

Sandwiches will be made to order and hot dogs and hamburgers will be preassembled for students. Tolbert said the salad bar will now be double-sided so lines won’t be as long.

“We really tried to address all of the line issues we had before,” he said, “Everywhere we had a backup, we changed the lineup.”

To deal with flow issues, three beverage stations are spaced throughout the dining area.
The popular “sizzling salad” station has been expanded and is a permanent fixture to the dinner menu. The wrap station has also been expanded to include two extra sandwich choices and an extra salad option.

Returning students will hardly recognize the space, which has greatly increased its seating capacity from 454 to 708 seats. A building expansion of 20 feet increased seating capabilities. The dining area has booths and tables that can accommodate groups of varying sizes.

“We lost that old grade-school seating where all of the tables were lined up and the same size,” Tolbert said.

Hoping to throw away as little as possible, management gathered the old tables that were in the best condition and sent them to the Ambler Campus and the Diamond Club in Mitten Hall. Tables and chairs were also donated to local churches.

“We tried not to throw anything away that people could use,” Tolbert said.
The Valaida S. Walker Food Court in the Student Center acted as a pseudo-J&H during the summer months.

“It was an awkward setup because we were doing resident dining in a place that wasn’t built for it,” Tolbert said.

The last upgrade to the J&H cafeteria occurred while school was in session in 1993. Over more than eight months, construction crews worked to complete renovations.

“We were setting up tables in the back as people were coming in the front,” Tolbert said. “[The current project] is an amazing feat to get done in 18 weeks.”

New laminate flooring and carpet complete the modern look of J&H. Instead of one main walkway in the dining area, the laminate flooring is shaped into paths leading to all seating areas. All paths lead to the tray return, which now has sound barriers so the noise of clanging dishes no longer resonates throughout the dining hall.

“It’s like following the Yellow Brick Road in and out of the dining room,” Tolbert said.

LeAnne Matlach and Chris Stover can be reached at news@temple-news.com.

Building Up

Welcome to the 2008-2009 school year. This is a hectic time of year, especially for freshmen and transfer students. As you make your way around campus, what sticks out most is the ongoing construction.

At 13th Street and Montgomery Avenue sits the future home of the Fox School of Business. Alter Hall is set to open for the 2009 spring semester. Gisela and Dennis Alter donated $15 million for the construction of this building, which will include smart classrooms, a trading room and a stock ticker.

A few blocks away at 12th and Norris streets, you’ll find more building in progress. Starting in January 2009, students at the Tyler School of Art will join Main Campus full time. The $75 million project was funded mostly by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and university bond revenues.

It wasn’t just academic buildings that got makeovers this year. The Louis J. Esposito Dining Hall also got a bit of a faceliftA. With 20 extra feet of space, the cafeteria can now seat 254 more people at booths and tables of various sizes. In addition to the old favorites, there is now a vegan and vegetarian station to accommodate students’ dietary preferences. There are also fewer self-service stations.

While you’re waiting for the sawing and jack hammering to end, take time to notice the more subtle changes on campus. The Temple News is here to help with that. Our staff has been working all summer to create the best product possible, and we’re not stopping with the weekly print edition. With daily online coverage, a blog and audio and video clips, The Temple News is your go-to source for campus and community news. We have the latest reports on the topics students and administrators care about most.

As the school year progresses, stick with The Temple News for all your news, entertainment and sports needs. The construction will stop eventually, but the news won’t. Neither will we.

J&H cafeteria to get summer renovations

Changes are coming to the Johnson & Hardwick cafeteria this summer, and it’s not in the turkey tetrazzini recipe.

The Louis J. Esposito Dining Court will see a major facelift, literally from the floor to the ceiling.

“It’s going to be a total transformation,” said Jeffrey Brown, marketing director for Temple Dining Services.

The dining hall will close at 7 p.m. tomorrow, the time when all students will be moved out of the residence halls.  Lingering students will see the demolition crew arriving at that time as the construction will begin immediately, General Manager David Tolbert said.

The construction, the first structural change the building has seen since 1993, is scheduled to be finished by the fall semester, giving contractors a 19-week window to complete the renovations.

“Just like any other business or home, you definitely want to do a renovation in a timely fashion so that it’s a pleasant area,” Brown said.

The $4.2 million expansion, funded by Sodexo, will create 250 more seats in seven seating areas, bringing its total capacity to 704 people.  The wall facing Annenberg Hall will be removed, and the structure will be expanded to the loading dock, Tolbert said.

The food will mostly remain the same, Tolbert said, but its availability will likely increase.  A vegan bar, breakfast bar and omelet bar will be permanent features.  Both the salad bar and fast food bar – which typically contains hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese and french fries – will have two stations to ease overcrowding, Tolbert said.

“Just from the nature of the setup, it’s going to allow us to be more diverse and to do more things with our menu,” Brown said.
Additionally, a third beverage station will be added to the back of the dining hall.  A display cooking station is planned to be added within the dining hall, which will act as a “teaching kitchen,” Tolbert said.

“We’re in the food business,” Operations Manager Dolores Abbonizio said. “I want food to be seen­—not flowers [or] statues.”
The overall goal of the new floor plan is to decrease congestion, Tolbert said.

The renovations over the summer mean new arrangements for students taking courses during the two summer sessions.  Operations will be moved from J&H to the Student Center’s Valaida S. Walker Food Court.

The Burger King and Einstein Bros. Bagels will be open to use with the meal plan for cash equivalency, just as they are now.  Inside the court itself, a J&H-style buffet will temporarily replace the current operations, Tolbert said.

Otherwise, no major changes will be coming to the Student Center food court.  Signage updates and new food boards are the extent of the renovations, Brown said.
Posters featuring the new layouts adorn the walls as students exit the cafeteria.  Brown said feedback has been positive so far.

“From what I have observed, students are excited about the dining hall being renovated,” he said. “They’re really happy to see that we’re putting our best foot forward in that area.”

Freshmen Samantha Fare and Matthew Surden, regulars at J&H, both said they are happy to see the overdue upgrades.

“I come in here a lot when it’s busy,” said Fare, a pre-pharmacy major.  “We usually have to sit all the way in the back corner.”

A fan of the occasional omelet station, Fare said she is excited to see it become a permanent fixture.

“I think it’s going to be good for the cafeteria,” said Surden, a journalism major, adding that the larger areas will help the flow of traffic at the food stations.
Kristenne Perelion, a freshman accounting major, echoed the need for a change, saying the cafeteria “is kind of dull as it is.”

“It looks more like a real cafeteria,” she said, commenting on the blueprints.  “And it looks really stylish – a good upgrade.”

Chris Stover can be reached at stover@temple.edu.
Staff writer Kurt Hirsch contributed to this report.