When Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé announced that Hillsdale College had ended its long relationship with Saga, Inc. in favor of Bon Appétit Management Company (Bamco), there was much rejoicing around Hillsdale College. Hillsdale’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, which had campaigned against Saga, represented this joy on its Facebook page:
“The College’s decision to change food providers is a testament to what can happen when students get off the sidelines and get involved. Today’s news is the result of students speaking out on multiple levels to an administration willing to listen and ready to make changes. From social media, to petitions, to open dialogue with administrators, students were loud and clear that they wanted change, and their efforts were not in vain.
“Ultimately, today’s news means an improvement to student life for everyone at Hillsdale College. We look forward to seeing what delicious food Bon Appétit is ready to serve up this next year.”
Yet these celebrations are ill-informed. After all, YAF sought not just to change food providers, but to end mandatory meal plans completely. In that sense, cynics could view this change as distraction or appeasement. And what if the dining service begins to suffer from the same problems, different but equally serious deficiencies, or even more severe drawbacks?
There are several reasons beyond mere cynicism and skepticism, however, to be wary of this culinary coup d’état, and even to miss our appetites’ ancien régime: namely, portion-limiting of the new dining service; Saga’s self-serve buffet efficiency; and, most important, Saga’s slow yet steady improvements whose end result we shall never see.
Any student who has gone to a meal so far has seen that Bamco has abandoned Saga’s self-serve style. One of Bamco’s self-proclaimed “kitchen principles” is to favor quality over quantity, which may produce better food, but unavoidably produces a longer wait. For students crunched for time or content with plainer entrees, this trade-off’s benefits are dubious.
To be sure, Saga itself occasionally adhered to this model, limiting portions for chicken wraps and Caesar salads. But, on the whole, it had at least figured out how to provide unlimited amounts of plain, usually adequate food. While lines did exist, they were less frequent and more easily avoided with clever timing (11:49 a.m. was the ideal time to start lunch; 5:50 p.m., perfect for dinner). Even Sunday brunch, by far Saga’s best and most popular meal, featured manageable lines, as well as multiple omelette bars, generous helpings of chicken, and nearly endless waffles—all lacking at Bamco’s first Sunday brunch.
But the abrupt cutting-short of Saga’s earnest attempts at self-improvement remains the saddest result of the switch in dining services. Last year, Saga began both to take students’ complaints to heart and to show signs of genuine progress.
Two of the most noteworthy and popular changes were the introduction of spinach to virtually every lunch and dinner, and the addition of a well-stocked yogurt bar. For all of Saga’s faults (and let us not be romantic in recalling the past, there were many), it was truly getting better. Though it may be possible that Saga simply couldn’t sustain its improved model, switching to a new dining service reflected student impatience bordering on the revolutionary.
Now, revolutions themselves are not inherently evil. But they are frivolous unless waged following what Jefferson called “a long train of abuses.” It would be a stretch to label Saga’s inadequacies as such.
Still, for any amount of attachment to the past or skepticism of the future to return what once was is as unlikely as the emergence of a “Saga rocks!” campaign to bring Saga back comparable to the “Saga Sucks” campaign whose adherents claim their namesake’s scalp.
Students are better off, then, accustoming themselves to Bamco, even when it isn’t perfect and the new chef quite resembles the old chef (Bamco’s founders came from the Saga family, after all), holding it as accountable as we held Saga, and bonding over complaints about its inevitable shortcomings. It was never really about the dining anyway; it was about what happened in the dining hall.
Perhaps someday, Bamco will win over the hearts and stomachs of even the most stubborn and skeptical (hint: improving Sunday brunch would help). But until that day, and even well after, I will miss Saga, Inc.
