When Julie Patterson (COL ‘12) bit down on something hard mixed in with her fried rice at Leo’s on Thursday night, she figured it was a bone—it wasn’t.

“It was so disgusting …  I realized it was round and I thought, oh God is it somebody’s ring?” she said. “And I spit it out and it was this nut, as in nuts and bolts. It was rusty.”

Patterson, who eating at late night, said her friends suggested she talk to personnel at Leo’s. In the end, she didn’t tell staff about the offending hardware, pictured left.

“I figured they would say, ‘Thanks for bringing this to our attention,’ and not do anything about it because it’s unlikely to happen again,” she said. (Disclosure: Patterson has written occasionally for Vox Populi.)

Update 02/20 8:04 p.m.:Vox received the following e-mail today from Executive Director of Dining at Georgetown Andrew Lindquist:

“Georgetown Dining takes food safety very seriously. We not only have a strict preventative maintenance plan in place to avoid such situations, but also have not had any reports of this specific issue previously.

“Following your note, our management team conducted a strict impromptu review of each location along with all of the equipment within Leo’s to identify a potential source and was unable to identify one. Nuts and bolts are somewhat hard to come by in a commercial kitchen to avoid such issues. Most of our equipment and utensils are constructed with welds and other fusing methods.

“If in the future a student does come across any foreign object we do ask that they notify management right away to identify the source and execute a solution.”

The Georgetown Solidarity Committee is protesting against the University’s food service provider, Aramark, accusing them of unjust tomato-buying practices, according to GSC’s blog. According to the post, large food service companies like Aramark and Sodexo, have been using their huge purchasing powers to keep tomato prices depressed, leading to low, stagnant wages for farmworkers.

Back in December, a representative from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers’ organization from a tomato-growing region of Florida, visited Georgetown’s food committee to educate them about the issue and to deliver a letter demanding that Aramark reform.

Since then, though, Solidarity hasn’t had much luck communicating the issue to the administration. According to the post, Andrew Lindquist, Aramarks’s Executive Director of Dining Services at Georgetown, denied Aramark’s culpability and has refused repeated requests for meetings. (Lindquist and other University officials have not yet responded to Vox’s requests for comment.)

So this summer Solidarity has taken to a more guerrilla approach, hanging banners in prominent locations on campus, accosting tour groups, and handing out fliers to students in on-campus summer programs. They are also encouraging other students to call or email Lindquist to pressure him about the issue.

Photo from Solidarity’s blog.

Aramark, whose last foray into charity involved ice sculptures and Amir Bakshi and went generally well, may be acting nice again by helping Leslie Tang, the Leo’s employee who lost her house in a fire.

In last Thursday’s Student Food Committee meeting, Andrew Lindquist (of blue cup fame), suggested donating food or getting a matching gift from Aramark. Meanwhile, Solidarity has raised just over $3,000.

Interesting thing about Tang: she survived the Khmer Rouge.

The University just sent out an email saying we beat the Dread Pirate Norovirus. Hurray! The cheering will be loudest at Aramark because the email says Leo’s isn’t at fault:

The Department of Health continues their investigation into the exact source of the recent norovirus on campus but has ruled out any in house food service and in fact permitted the full restoration of dining services at O’Donovan Hall (Leo’s), which has taken place this week.

“Huh?”, you might say, and rightly so. Where else on campus do students shovel food into their mouths, and where else on campus has a history of bad handwashing? Fair point, but “in house food service” doesn’t rule out Grab N Go. I’m looking into it and will report back.

Tonight, though, we celebrate.  Actually, make that Wednesday, we celebrate:

Recognizing the inconvenience that many of you have experienced over the past week, dining services has graciously agreed to students’ suggestions to cater a GUSA Election Panel and Debate Watch party planned in Leo’s on Wednesday, October 15.

Thanks for catering one event, Aramark. Maybe instead you could refund the meals from the Center Grill.

Didn’t even buy a meal plan

There’s been a lot of information about the Georgetown norovirus outbreak on Vox Populi and elsewhere, including the Hoya and Todd Olson’s Xanga. It’s all become a blizzard of words, though, and that’s no good when you just want to stay healthy. So here, all in one place and in a convenient question-answer format, The Georgetown Norovirus FAQ:

Q: Is it safe to eat in Leo’s?

A: The administration must think so or they wouldn’t have opened it tonight. That doesn’t mean much, but consider this: after the Department of Health and Aramark scoured the place, it’s probably cleaner now than it ever will be.

Q: I threw up all over my room. Now my roommate is mad and is sleeping in the common room because of the smell. Also, I missed a test.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Aramark took over Leo’s cafeteria a year ago, they promised 6 “all-you-care-to-eat mini-restaurants” by the beginning of spring semester. They never appeared, and little changed in the dining hall.

Things are finally getting going, though, according to an email from Andrew Lindquist, Leo’s dining director:

[Leo's changes] is nearing completion. It will now include a brick oven pizza station, marketplace, and diner. In addition, work was done on the upper level to provide more opportunity. I think you will enjoy the new design and features.

Of course, Lindquist might actually be fooling us into another year of treating wrap and breakfast fajita bars as major innovations. And “marketplace” sounds more like the current pile of fruit, bread, and donuts than a mini-restaurant.

Not that this is bash Aramark day, but I ventured into Donny’s (Leo O’Donovan Dining Hall, get it?) today and was confronted with cold, cooked, broccoli. For some reason, I love broccoli, but either have it cold and raw or cooked and hot. Nothing’s worse than something that is both cold and mushy. How are you finding the new dining hall?

- Tim Fernholz, Editor in Chief

Aramark’s takeover of Leo’s is just okay, despite the sublime pasta bar. It’s going to take at least a semester before we see real changes, but more worrisome is Aramark’s old habit for questionable business practices–and a more recent taste for covering it up online.

Wikipedia’s entry on Aramark has a short section on corporate malfeasance: Aramark overcharged a prison $2 million, it’s been firing people unfairly at a hospital, and it withheld tips from hotel employees. Things might be much worse, though, because someone at an Aramark IP address has been editing damaging entries from the Wikipedia page.

This news comes from Wikiscanner, a website that links IP addresses to the anonymous edits they make. It’s not necessarily an Aramark employee or company sanctioned, but who besides an Aramark employee can use their internet access? Aramark’s vandal isn’t so much sinister as clumsy–any amateur wiki prankster knows not to just delete paragraphs. One person using an Aramark computer deleted huge chunks of the corporate malfeasance section. Later, some PR boiler plate was inserted that inadvertently referred to “our” employees.

Amusing as Aramark’s antics are, Georgetown can’t afford repeats of either their corporate dirty tricks or bumbling disinformation.
-Will Sommer, blog editor