Squaring up fresh at Georgia Tech

Woodruff Dining Hall at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), in Atlanta, underwent a culinary renovation this fall. Dining at the hall, known affectionately as Woody’s, is now restaurant style with menus crafted around the availability of local products. 

Named Fresh Squared, the new restaurant-style concept serves fresh, local produce and proteins from seven stations, including a grill, a customized tossed salad station, a vegan bar, an allergy-friendly station and a chef’s table. “With Fresh Squared, we first looked at what’s fresh,” explains Ericlee Reed, executive chef with Sodexo at Georgia Tech. “We have the ability to do both fresh product from not just Georgia, but local is classified as North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida.” And considering the longer seasons the South experiences, the opportunities to source and serve fresh, local produce are virtually limitless.

Reed says from the moment customers enter the front door, they will see a display of fresh, seasonal and local produce that is “screaming fresh.” And freshness doesn’t just pertain to the produce but also to menu variety. “What you see at lunch, you won’t see at dinner,” Reed says.

Menu items such as fresh-roasted rotisserie chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and cured lemon broccoli are individually plated to order, unlike the previous buffet-style service. Employees are “actually building the plates, so the customer has the speed of service and also they’re able to take advantage of getting a restaurant-style plate on the go,” Reed says. And like freshness, pairing is also front and center at each of the stations. At the chef’s table “at lunch time, for instance, you might go in and see a papaya and poached shrimp spring roll in rice paper and it will have a little soba noodle salad next to it because we want to make sure we’re pairing, too,” he explains.