Legacy

Behind the familiar metal counters and plate-glass windows in the Tiger Lair, employees are busy preparing Union plates, pepperoni pizzas, fresh pasta and crisp chicken nuggets for the thousands of students and faculty who march into the Student Union every day.

“On an average day for lunch, we’ll serve 8,000 meals,” said Don Koshis, University Director of Operations.

“Down-time?” Gennie Sims, Chick-fil-A employee and former high school sports star from Christian Life Academy, said as he laughed at the question. “We have a lot of stuff to do when the lunch crowd isn’t here. We’re in the back, wiping down coolers and walls. Sometimes, you have to find something to do. But if [the managers] see you standing around, you have got to leave.”

After taking a year off from school and work, the 24-year-old father of four was ready to get back into the daily grind. He comes to work around 10 a.m. ready to stock napkins, forks and straws. Busy work to some, but he prefers the constant movement, even during lunchtime.

“The time goes by faster,” Sims said. “Your adrenaline starts pumping, and we always get the people that tell you, ‘You’re doing a great job.’”

LaTonya Porter, 33-year-old Chick-fil-A supervisor, said the job isn’t stressful because of the fun atmosphere the employees have created.

“We play jokes on each other all the time,” Porter said with a slight chuckle.

These jokes are a huge aspect of working in the Tiger Lair. Union Retail Manager Ryan Lewis tries to instill that camaraderie in his staff.

“It’s about getting them amped up and ready to work,” he said.

Lewis does whatever he can to make his employees feel at home, whether it’s finding out what sports teams they like or giving them a pat on the back for a hard day’s work.

But during the first two weeks of the semester, Lewis might not have as much time for conversation. He and Koshis are busy examining reports that will allow them to predict how much food to prepare.

“Right now, we’re producing for the unknown,” Koshis said. “We’re overstaffing and overproducing for the lunch crowd because the students haven’t quite gotten into that routine.”

Koshis and Lewis use velocity reports to track the amount of students who come through the food court. After Lewis checks those reports from his third-floor office, he relays the information back down to the second floor.

Between changing out the registers for the next rush and compliments from bosses and passing students alike, you have to wonder: do they ever run out of food?

“Yes and no. We might be out of a certain dish for a period of time, but we batch cook all day long,” Koshis said. “Our ovens and cooking utensils are big enough for a certain amount of food. We can only make a batch at a time that would serve a certain number of people. Then, [the cooks] start another batch a little later so there’s fresh food available.”

Koshis needs more than 400 associates to serve a large percentage of University students, and said the process could be easily marred with mistakes when communication fails.

“We do run into some glitches and communication breakdowns,” he said. “We are not going to sit here and say we don’t make mistakes, but it’s not out of a lack of effort.”

It all comes back to preparation.

“Our customers don’t change,” Koshis said. “We have to be the ones that change. We have to analyze what’s best for the students. We look at all the trends on television and the Internet. We can’t just sit back and say, ‘We had a great year.’”

Koshis understands that not everyone will love the food selection in the Tiger Lair, but he said it’s difficult to pinpoint what each student wants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, thats not his main objective.

“I would love to serve all of the 35,000 people and make them happy,” Koshis said. “We do a lot of things to try, but I don’t know if that’s feasible. So, we look at what the mass wants. And if we can prepare for what 80 percent of those people want … That’s great.”

It’s almost an exact science, like cooking that perfect meal. A shake of salt, a tablespoon or two of olive oil, a bit of heat from the stove and some smiles here and there.

Together, it’s enough to make a young man like Sims be more than a face behind rows of bagged chicken sandwiches.

“Dream job?” Sims surmises, pondering. “I wouldn’t mind running the Lair.”

Photographs by Sahir Kahn