Benjamin Ruby
Staff Writer
After major changes this school year, Florida Southern’s dining services, managed by Guest Services Inc., and the Office of Business Affairs face confusion as Wynee’s Bistro adopts an all-you-can-eat system and meal plans for residents are revamped.
“Our focus is really on providing the best products that we can,” said Tim Raibel, FSC’s Food Services Director. “Going to an all-you-can-eat really was, I think, a great addition this year.”
According to Raibel, the new meal plan adjusts exponentially based upon the number of weekly meals chosen. Additionally, for students who enrolled in Fall 2023 or later, a portion of their meal plan is specifically allocated for use at Wynee’s Bistro. This allocation varies by plan: eight meals in the 20-meal plan, six meals in the 15-meal plan, four meals in the 10-meal plan, and none in the 5-meal plan.
“It’s like anything else. The more you buy, the better your volume discount is,” Raibel said in reference to the recent meal plan changes. Raibel has been in the food service industry for more than 35 years and understands that students do not always want to get their meals from Wynee’s Bistro. He sees this new system as an opportunity for students with lower meal plans to get more food from alternative food locations around campus that have been forced to higher their prices without astronomically raising the price of a meal at Wynee’s Bistro. Raibel says during the first two weeks of school, Wynee’s Bistro has already seen an approximately 20% increase in attendance from recent years, with dinners serving about 800 students or a quarter of the student body.
Contrary to popular belief, the swipe system and the all-you-can-eat option for Wynee’s Bistro is not a new development for the college. According to Raibel, swipes were included in meal plans up until spring 2019 and Wynee’s Bistro’s all-you-can-eat option lasted a year longer than that.
Before the changes, Raibel reports that there were far fewer pricing adjustments and general changes to the meal plan year-to-year. Switching back to the old system, along with the addition of the exponential weight to the individual meal plans, Raibel expects that fewer changes will need to be made to the FSC dining experience in coming years.
Moving forward, GS is constantly looking for ways that they can improve the customer experience.
“We actually do look at what our students are saying about us,” Raibel said. “Our customer service is really what we spend more of our time focusing on.”
If students have any feedback for GS, they can submit a feedback form using the QR code found at each of their food service locations. All responses to the form are read by Raibel himself within a couple of days of their submission.
“I do it because more people are eating here, so I want to make sure we keep them happy,” Raibel said.
Student feedback is already being implemented through a partnership with the Student Government Association to remove unnecessary styrofoam waste produced by Wynee’s Bistro. To enact this change, Guest Services has begun charging a small fee for disposable to-go containers and offered more advertisements regarding the Ozzi Machine, which has been at Wynee’s Bistro for several years.
Students can utilize the Ozzi Machine by purchasing a coin from the Wynee’s Bistro checkout for a one-time purchase of $5. Once a student has acquired a coin, they can show it at the checkout line to receive a reusable to go container. After they have finished eating from their reusable to-go container, they can rinse it before returning it to the Ozzi Machine or a Wynee’s Bistro cashier to receive another coin. This new process will greatly reduce the amount of waste produced by Wynee’s Bistro once it is more widely utilized.
As long as Guest Services continues to receive both positive and constructive feedback from students, students can look forward to more improvements to FSC’s dining experience in the coming years.
