Cafeteria prepares food daily for students
Offering three food services a day, the cafeteria staff keeps MacArthur fed.
Cafeteria Supervisor Mrs. Celina Vargas and Mrs. Noelia Ramirez are part of the behind the scenes crew that prepares food daily. Vargas, Ramirez, and all the cafeteria employees serve sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students lunch every day in the school year.
Arriving at 6:30 AM, the cafeteria staff are responsible for three food services: breakfast, nutrition, and lunch. According to Vargas the staff is short on people in the cafeteria, but the staff do their best every day of the year to serve the students.
The company A&R delivers frozen food on Tuesdays and Thursdays; on Mondays and Wednesdays, fresh fruit is delivered. Each day the food that comes frozen on Tuesdays and Thursdays is heated up for lunch.
The menu changes every day, but Wednesday’s stay the same. On Wednesdays pizza is served. Other options in the week consists of: tamales, calzones, teriyaki chicken, chicken tenders, fried chicken, corn, bagels, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pizza, macaroni, chicken burgers, cereal, fruits, and salads. The menu tends to go through a two week cycle, weeks one and two.
After lunch, the cafeteria staff cleans up. The clean up schedule is divided by groups, and each staff member is assigned certain areas to clean up.
Ramirez said, “Students think, ‘Why don’t they cook the food instead of heating it up?” First in the kitchen it’s not possible to cook anything if they don’t have a stove in the kitchen. Another reason is how preparing the food will take too much time. An important part of it is that they are short on employees. “I like my job! I like to serve you guys! I love to prepare the food. I like when the students thank us and like the food!” said Ramirez.
“I love the food without a doubt! If I had to choose my favorite food item would be on the bagels on the menu during nutrition,” said Marie Rodriguez, sixth grader.
Isabelle Guillen, seventh grader, enjoys the chips and meat with cheese on it. However, there’s always room for improvement. “I would like if they had cherries for fruit,” said Isabelle.