The kids at Warring Elementary have been raving about the new food in their cafeteria.
Main dishes are coming out of new hot wells on a revamped serving line. Cold items and milk are coming out of the new cold wells, which have the ability to drop below freezing temperatures for serving icy treats as summer approaches.
“The kids come in and they say ‘Ooh! Aaah! This is new. This is nice,’” Shameka Watson, director of food services, said. “They think we have new food, and it’s the same food we’ve been serving. It just looks better on a new serving line.”
The cafeteria and kitchen at Warring was redesigned this winter in the second of a series of cafeteria projects planned across the district. The high school was the first to receive a makeover in the fall and three other elementary schools are scheduled to have new looks by this coming fall.
Warring’s cafeteria has walls of white and light purple to match the school’s colors. In addition to the new kitchen serving line, Warring as of last month has new tables with tops decorated to match new wall decor installed earlier in the year.
“The kids love it,” Watson said. The centerpiece of the design is a floor-to-ceiling tree decal that stretches about 15 feet wide and includes sayings like “create” “family” and “pride.” “It looks beautiful. As soon as you walk in, you see it. It has all these positive affirmations.”
The tables are various shapes – oval, circle, rectangles and octagonal – with a mix of attached singular and bench seating. Watson said some tweaks to the new system are still needed and the decorations for a couple of the tables still need to come in.
The high school saw a boost in students opting for school lunch when the redesign of its cafeteria and senior lounge debuted in the fall and, year-over-year, participation remains up. Watson said 80-90% of Warring students already ate school lunch, so the redesign is more about giving students a vibrant space to enjoy.
The redesigns coincide with the elementary reconfiguration plan now underway in which Sojourner Truth (formerly Morse) and Krieger will become pre-K to grade 2 schools and Smith, Warring and Roberto Clemente (formerly Clinton) will serve students in grades 3-5 beginning in the fall.
Designers on Monday visited Truth, Clemente and Krieger schools to take measurements in advance of creating personalized designs. Renovations of the Smith and Poughkeepsie Middle School cafeterias are expected to follow in the near future.
“We’re trying to keep the school colors incorporated,” Watson said of the designs. “If they’re red, they’ll be red, if it’s blue, it’ll be blue. I know Krieger is yellow and green, that’s going to be wild.
