8 smart ideas to steal from CU Boulder's dining program

The University of Colorado’s location in Boulder, Colo., a city known for its environmental consciousness, puts sustainability top of mind, says Paul Houle, director of campus dining. During a recent tour of the college’s new Village Center Dining Hall, this priority was clearly demonstrated in the menu, sourcing and design of this facility and the entire dining program. Innovative ideas for engaging the campus's 31,000-plus students were also in full view. Take a look at the cutting-edge features Houle pointed out, and see which ones may be adaptable to your operation.

Village Center’s floor-to-ceiling windows are constructed with electrochromic glass that transitions from tinted to transparent, changing with the strength of the sun. Daylight filters in, allowing the dining hall to keep the electric lights off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, saving energy and creating a restaurant-like ambiance. When the sun goes down, the lights come on.

All-day breakfast is available at Toast, one of the stations in the dining hall. In addition to ordering customized waffle and yogurt creations, students can opt to make their own smoothies on the station’s blender bikes. A team member fills the blender container with smoothie ingredients and attaches it to the front of the bike, and the customer pedals the bike to power the blender. Students get their smoothies with a side of exercise.

The dining hall is an all-you-care-to-eat operation, but the trays are half the traditional size. Students pile less food on the smaller trays and are welcome to come back for seconds, says Houle, adding that the move has been very effective in reducing food waste. “We’ve measured the results and our post-consumer waste is lower than colleges that have gone trayless,” he explains.

CU Boulder preps 2 tons of raw vegetables every day for its salad bars, soups, stir-fries and other menu items. To free up chefs so they can focus on menu development and cooking, the university created a centralized vegetable commissary. Here, less-skilled workers cut up all the fresh produce and send it out to the various venues. “We hire chefs to cook and build dishes, not cut vegetables,” Houle says.

With the addition of a new greenhouse accommodating 137 aeroponic towers, the vegetable commissary will have a lot more local produce to prep. “The towers will provide all the green leafy vegetables for our salad bars,” Houle says. Plus, they will allow students to see the whole farm-to-table process, as they can watch the produce being picked, transported to the glass-doored walk-in and set on the salad bar. Houle even hired a farm manager to oversee the greenhouse operation.

Many CU Boulder students choose the college for its access to outdoor activities in the surrounding mountains. To connect the dining hall with the great outdoors and the rest of the campus, garage doors were installed near the seating areas—a design element trending in restaurants, too. In warm weather, the doors open wide to outdoor patios and provide a clear view of the Rocky Mountains.

One of the dining hall stations is an open demo kitchen with monitors displaying the chefs at work. Most of the time, this kitchen is dedicated to training campus chefs; but twice a month, CU Boulder holds cooking classes for students. The students sit at long wooden tables constructed with induction burners in the center so they can cook along with their instructors. The idea is to take them beyond boiling water for instant ramen noodles, Houle says.

The Grotto, the fast-casual restaurant housed in Village Center, is open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily. The menu includes burgers, grilled cheese and tots. To keep the food on the healthier side, The Grotto is not equipped with deep-fryers. The kitchen air-fries the tots in a combi oven, and they’ve turned out to be the best-seller,  Houle says. Alcohol is not permitted, but kombucha and nitro cold-brew are on tap. And several large flat-screens stream continuous entertainment. “The idea is to provide a safe space at night for students,” Houle says, adding that although the space opened just this year, it’s already a hit.