What do you do if you’re a prestigious state university specializing in engineering, technology, agriculture and food science — but your culinary instructors struggle with a training kitchen that the facilities director likens to “a home economics classroom from the 1950s”?

Augustana University’s community kitchen space mixes residential and commercial equipment for student use.

Designers faced challenges ranging from working with an older building to designing stations with flexibility in mind to accommodate unknown operators.

Flexibility to change and improve with the times became one of the primary goals of Duke University’s market street food concept in the Richard H. Brodhead Center for Campus Life when it opened in August 2016. Six years later, a refresh of 4 of the Brodhead Center’s 14 restaurant concepts and a replacement of a chain restaurant stay true to the original project team’s vision.

A bright, inviting environment greets staff and visitors within the Spectrum Health Lakeland Medical Center Pavilion in southwest Michigan. This project includes a new addition to the hospital and a renovation of existing space. The new addition features an airy public atrium with a more welcoming entrance and a better customer flow to and through the renovated cafe, renamed The Atrium.

The owners of Metz Culinary Management recognized a need in Florida to provide meals to organizations and businesses that require large quantities of food, especially considering the significant growth in Florida’s senior population.

Intermountain Medical Center (IMC) serves as the flagship hospital for Intermountain Healthcare. In October 2020, the Murray, Utah, facility made the transition to room service style of feeding for patients from a more traditional tray service approach to patient feeding.

Much to the delight of the University of California, Riverside community, the highly anticipated, renovated and expanded The Barn restaurant and Patio Bar opened last summer. It stayed in operation until December 2020 when it closed due to University of California guidelines, which meant minimal students on campus. The university plans to reopen the facility this fall.

A reimagined restaurant and cafe add menu diversity and a new dining experience at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla.

The old cafeteria at Englewood High School in Jacksonville, Fla., functioned poorly. Students had to wait in long lines to pick up their food, which meant a lack of adequate time to eat. In addition, the teenage students were not fond of the tired, drab, institutional-style ambience.

The Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) is opening the 2020-2021 school year with a new Culinary Center, even though the facility will be used differently than originally intended since the district plans to start the year with remote learning.

Acts Retirement-Life Community at Plantation Estates in Matthews, N.C., continues to attract younger and more active independent-living residents. The newest addition to dining options appealing to these active residents, Bistro 51, offers a casual menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Bars are a known revenue generator and might take less effort to staff but rarely get the necessary attention in a restaurant’s design phase.

Central Campus Dining Hall joins the University of Vermont’s (UVM) dining operations. This Burlington, Vt., dining operation was built as part of the new 695-bed Central Campus Residence Hall and the newly renovated Bailey/Howe Library. The university expects the building, which opened in August 2017, to receive LEED Gold certification.

The new kitchen, servery and dining room at this Jackson, Miss., middle school use contemporary technologies for a more efficient child nutrition program.

 International cuisine caters to students’ sophisticated and cultured palates at the University of Southern California.

Cultivating a healing environment for patients, visitors and staff, this café and lounge bring a new dimension to sustainable dining.

Micro marts expand employees' foodservice options throughout the day and night at Hallmark's headquarters and production and distribution facilities. A renovation at the Lawrence facility also features a micro mart.

A kitchen serving new elementary and middle schools brings efficiencies to the child nutrition program at Jackson Public Schools.

A café in Saint Francis Hospital’s new emergency center/patient tower and a servery and kitchen at the Laureate Eating Disorders Program offer staff, visitors andpatients healthful meal and snack options.

Onsite First Place: Manna at Castle Rock Adventist Hospital, Castle Rock, Colo.

Non-commercial foodservice projects can take a lot of forms. Here we explore the impetus behind the design of a pair of Chicago-based installations and how their uses shaped equipment selection.

Referred to by students and staff alike as the cement bunker, the once state-of-the-art Gordon Commons dining hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was clearly past its prime. Built in 1965 to serve as the primary dining facility for some 3,000 students housed in nearby residence halls, as well as the school's central commissary, Gordon was stodgy, old school and out of step with the UW's progressive, competitive flagship Big Ten campus atmosphere. Despite efforts over the years to keep up appearances, it was campus foodservice at its most stereotypical.