New Cal Dining station caters to special dietary needs

There's a new dining concept at the University of California, Berkeley - and it's super inclusive. In fact, it welcomes students who are kosher, vegetarian, vegan and/or halal.

Dubbed "Hall for All," the station features a menu of pita, falafel and pickled vegetables as well as kosher-certified meat. It stands at the center of Café 3 at Unit 3, a dining hall that serves roughly 2,000 students either brunch and/or dinner each day. (It's also home to Cal Dining's largest convenience store, Bear Market.)

Hall for All replaces an Asian and Indian concept and was the brainchild of Sean LaPean, executive director, who relied heavily on Jose Martinez, executive chef, and Thierry Bourroux, residential dining director, to do much of the heavy lifting to get the concept up and running in less than three months.

LaPean shared with FM the story of how the Hall for All came to provide delicious, plant-forward and kosher meals for the diverse UC Berkeley community.

Q: Where did the idea for a dedicated kosher concept come from?

A: I had worked on a kosher cafe at Vanderbilt in 2001 that is still very popular called Grins. Because of that experience, I know a great deal about kosher concepts and the certification processes. To be fair, Grains was vegetarian and retail whereas Café 3's station is all you can eat.

Q: The concept is more than just kosher though. It's also vegetarian, vegan. Why?

A: I've always wanted to do something more for our vegetarians and vegans. For the 14 years I've been here we've struggled with the perception that vegetarians have fewer options. Last year, after we opened Brown's Market (a retail café that features lots of vegetarian foods), it quickly became a campus favorite, which further emphasized the need to open a dining hall focused on plant-based foods.

Q: It's halal as well, right?

A: Once we started talking about making a concept that was vegetarian and vegan, there was a groundswell of requests for more kosher foods from both our Jewish and Muslim student associations. (Muslim students can default to kosher if their personal preference allows it.) We've always struggled with these populations. We've tried to provide alternatives, like grab-and-go sandwiches, but nothing is as good as a freshly prepared meal.

Q: How did your experience with your kosher sandwich program help steer you in the right direction?

A: Since we already had a mashgiach who oversees that part of the operation, it was a natural progression. We started talking about and planning for how we could manage a more full-service station. That's when Hall for All became a kosher/halal/vegetarian/vegan concept.

The station serves vegetarian, vegan, kosher or halal foods. Photo: Cal Dining

Q: Why was it important to add such an inclusive concept to Cal Dining?

A: We must make sure that our food and services facilitate students' learning outside the classroom. We must give them opportunities to gather, socialize and interact. So much learning takes place while breaking bread. And we felt there were certain parts of our community that could not participate in the same way or at the same level. This concept and this café - which will no longer serves pork or shellfish either—satisfies that need.

Q: What changes had to be made in order to get the concept off the ground?

A: We had to go through the kosher process—or mikvah. We also hired two sous chefs who are certified mashgichim. We needed to purchase a few new smallwares for service and train the new staff.

Q: What costs were (and are) associated with the new station?

A: The new smallwares added up to about $15,000. The cost of kosher meat compared to what we buy otherwise is about 30 percent more. Our cost per meal is about 20 cents more than ideal, but it's coming down as we learn, make changes and measure results.

Q: Did you have to establish any new vendor relationships in order to source ingredients for this concept?

A: The most difficult part of this has been the lack of distribution for kosher meat. Los Angeles has a full-service distributor, but the Bay Area does not. The University of Colorado, Boulder also has a kosher station so I talked with the Director Paul Houle at the recent Menus of Change University Research Collaborative meeting about how we could work together on volume purchases.

Q: How were students involved in the menu development process with the new station?

A: We met twice this semester with a group of about 12 students on both kosher and vegetarian menus. I am meeting without kosher/Muslim student associations soon to gauge their perceptions now that the concept has been open for a few weeks. From what I can tell, they're thrilled.

Q: Why is it important to feature kosher and halal items as well as more plant-based foods in campus dining?

A: Anyone can eat with us now. There are no deterrents. One of the interesting, unintended positive outcomes of Hall for All has come from students and parents of Indian backgrounds who previously struggled with meat in our facilities. Once we opened, we were flooded with positive comments and gratitude from these individuals.

Q: What are some of the challenges with the station or the menu?

A: There aren't any yet, though we want to keep the menu and the concept fresh and in line with all we do elsewhere. In the fall of 2018, a new resident hall will open nearby, so we will be going to three meals a day. We will have to figure out how to grow with those new students, but I'm confident in our team and our ability to do so in a way that maintains the integrity of the operation.