Keeping Students Fed a Tall Order for Dining Services
Image by Tory Wesnofske
11/14/2017
By David Perry
To follow Frank Hurley through the subterranean kitchen storage area in McGauvran Hall is to trail a man whose passion is putting quality food on the university’s tables.
Hurley, the executive chef for University Dining Services, feels personally responsible for serving tasty, nutritious and fresh meals at the university dining halls. He’s a stickler for the thousands of details that go into feeding thousands of hungry people every day.
Hurley knows everyone’s name, from the prep cooks to the man preparing made-to-order omelettes to the guys on the loading dock waiting for the produce truck to arrive. He knows that the dishwasher can clean 20,000 dishes in an hour if it has to, and that dining services goes through 15 30-gallon vats of canola oil across campus each week.
Passing through the kitchen prep area, Hurley pulls a thermometer from his white jacket and plunges it into a pile of steaming ground beef. “Perfect – 148 degrees,” he says. It’s when food is between 41 and 140 degrees that bacteria trouble can happen.
Walking behind him, it’s also impossible not to wish, for his sake, that they had dug the basement deeper. At 6’5”, wearing his chef’s toque (add 10 inches), Hurley has to remove his hat and duck to avoid overhead pipes.
“As much as possible, the ingredients are local and sustainable.” -Frank Hurley, executive chef for University DiningAlthough he may be the top chef on campus, he actually spends just a fraction of his time cooking.
“Probably 20 percent of my time is actually doing that,” says the 1994 Johnson & Wales University Culinary Arts graduate. But he has grown to savor the administrative details, which he views as essential ingredients to a well-run kitchen.
Hurley, 42, manages food orders, menus and budgets while working to “accommodate every single customer that we encounter.” He works with those with food allergies, religious restrictions or gluten issues. Vegan and vegetarian options are always on the menu.
On this Thursday in September, Hurley will oversee a campuswide food operation of nearly 500 employees that will serve 6,553 meals at the three dining halls (the Inn & Conference Center, Fox Hall and McGauvran). Fox Hall alone will rack up the most sales, with 4,260 meals served.
Ask him what’s the best-selling meal on campus, and Hurley doesn’t hesitate.
“Chicken parm, hands-down,” he proclaims. “The students love it.”
Up at 4 a.m. every work day, Hurley leaves his wife and two young daughters in their Bedford, N.H., home and is at his desk at the Inn and Conference Center by 6, where he pores over and answers e-mails, reviews bids and begins fielding calls from various leaders of culinary teams across campus.
At some point each morning, Hurley decides where he’ll be for the day. Usually, his location is dictated by where he is needed the most.
On Tuesdays through Dec. 12, you can find him at the Southwick Food Court, where he’ll be concocting dishes using “fresh, global flavors” to entice diners and flex his cooking muscles. The Korean rice bowl Chicken Bibimbap , Chicken Pad Thai, Gnocchi Cauliflower Alfredo and Tandoori Chicken Salad are some of the dishes he’ll be serving up.
“We’re trying to do something new and exciting and draw more people in,” Hurley says. He is also involved with planning for future dining options across campus.
Hawk’s Nest East at University Suites is being revamped as residential dining, and Cumnock Hall on North Campus is being transformed into a food court of sorts that will feature made-to-order sandwiches, salads, soups and other items.
