Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) has begun serving weekly chef’s dinner specials in each dining hall since Oct. 20. R&DE now also announces the specials in advance.
The same special is served at dinner from Monday through Friday as one part of that meal’s menu and students are able to see each dining hall’s special via dining hall signage and Instagram posts on @stanforddining.
Last year, dinner specials were not announced in advance and were only available while supplies lasted — typically for just one day.
According to Eric Montell, the assistant vice provost for Stanford Dining, Hospitality and Auxiliaries, in an email to The Daily, the specials “operated like the classic chef’s special at a restaurant, a pleasant surprise you discovered when you went out to eat, with the wait staff announcing the chef’s special of the day when taking your order.”
R&DE decided to pivot due to student feedback, Montell said.
“Some students told us they’d prefer to know the chef special ahead of time so they could plan their dining around classes and other commitments,” Montell wrote. “Students also mentioned occasionally missing out on specials they wanted to try due to the one-day availability.”
Though many students have not yet heard about the change, several liked the stability the new initiatives provide in comparison to the unpredictable nature of non-special food items.
“A lot of times the website will be inaccurate, or sometimes there’ll be food items that they’ll talk about on the website, but then when you actually go in person to the dining hall, it’s something that’s pretty different,” said Siddharth Bellam ’29.
Vivian Sullon Vicente ’29 agreed. “It should be really good to have a menu to see and realize where we want to go to eat,” she said.
However, some students said they didn’t have the capacity to go to specific dining halls based on dinner specials.
“Personally, when things are getting busy, I don’t really plan out ‘I want to eat this, therefore, I’ll go to XYZ dining hall,’” said Faith Qin ’29. “Instead I’m just like, what’s near me right now and what’s gonna close?”
With less dining halls near their dorms, some students living on west campus felt they didn’t have easy access to as many of the specials as east campus students.
“It can become repetitive, especially for me cause I eat dinner and breakfast at the same place pretty much everyday,” said Charlotte Burnham ’26. “It’s not the best when you don’t like the special either and get stuck with it. Sometimes consistency is nice, but I find people usually have a few dining halls they usually eat at, so it can definitely get old quick.”
Ben Jonker ’28 appreciated the change but wished the dishes themselves were more unique.
“It’s nice that they are making efforts to try and alleviate some of the problems of us eating the same three meals every day for the entire quarter, so in that extent I like it,” he said. “I think one of the problems with the way they’re doing specials right now is it’s a lot of the same stuff they would normally serve but just every day for the week. I don’t think I would ever go out of my way to go to a dining hall just because of the special.”
R&DE offers many ways for diners to provide feedback. Soon, students will be invited to vote on future chef specials so “the menu further reflects what students are most excited to see,” according to Montell. For now, students can share their suggestions directly with the chefs in the dining halls — including at their weekly open office hours from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays — and complete the Dining Customer Satisfaction Survey sent directly to student emails, which will be open until Nov. 21.
“We are grateful for the student feedback that is helping us make the dining program an even more welcoming and exciting part of campus life,” Montell wrote. “If there’s a dish students want, a cuisine they love or a dietary need we can support, please let your chef know, as we are here for students, and they are never an interruption in our day.”