Day 8 - Last Day @ Couch

So this was our final day at Couch Restaurants and we got to do quite a bit more then we have in the past few days here.

We started off at the front of the house with Luann who is the sweetest woman I have ever met in my life! She's been at OU for 22 years and currently works the cash register at the front of Couch although she's supervised and managed various locations across campus. She actually has a degree from Stanford and quit working in a professional job making a good amount of money to work at Burger King because it made her happy. She told us it didn't matter what we did with our degrees as long as the job made us happy! I couldn't agree more. Her job allows her to interact with most of the students and she is so friendly, kind, and sweet to everyone who goes in and out of the building. She takes either student or camp cards to swipe people in or cash, so me and Kelsey get to see her pretty much every day.

Afterwards we got to chat with Jamie who is the supervisor in the actual kitchen area. She went over the "Chef's Choice" menu which is section in the home area of Couch. During the school year they have a ton more options then the two cycles they go through for the camps, as well as a much higher quality of food options. It's also served buffet style where students serve themselves, however for camps they have people working the lines to serve the kids. I cannot believe some of the meals they have, there are a few pictures of the cycles they go through down below. I think the most interesting one I looked at was shark. Yah, they serve shark at a university cafeteria... Unheard of back home. The quality and effort put in by all of the staff here is phenomenal. Everyone is so dedicated and genuinely loves their job. Plus the quality of the food is the best I've seen anywhere. They only have the best. I forgot to mention yesterday the woman at Healthy Hearth at the cancer centre who is in charge of pastries and baked goods used to be the chef for Toby Keith! There is such little turnover rate as well which is quite impressive. She explained that most days during the summer there are usually about 4 staff working the kitchen depending on how busy they're expecting it to be. They also used this time to revamp the menus and creating some new options. Catering has their own menu but they typically don't change it very often, however this summer they're changing it so we may get to help out when we're with them for the week.

Next we moved onto the bakery section where we met the second cutest woman named Laysie. She's this little asian woman who is in charge of this area. If orders come in from catering she deals with them, as well as preparing biscuits, rolls, cookies, cake, and more for the sweet shop. Today she was working on cutting some pie slices for a conference that the university is holding of UAW (United Auto Workers), and preparing some samples for a wedding couple looking for sweets. She also put away two slices of pie for us for our lunch! She also told us we can come back and get any cookies or sweets we want to, definitely the right person to make friends with :) there's a pic of her and Kelsey down at the bottom too.

Our last stop of the day was at the storage area where we met Mike. He's also been at OU for 22 years and has stayed in the same spot so he explained everything to us in great detail. He went over the process for placing an order (which they do all online through US Foods) and told us mainly the chef and one other woman during the school year determine what needs to be ordered. They do inventory every Monday, Thursday, and Friday and receive shipments around 6am from US Foods every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's the same during the year and typically they have students deal with the storing of the product. We got to check out some of the receiving slips that come with the flats that are delivered, and again all these processes take place through the C-bord program that we learned about during our third day here.

That covered pretty much everything we needed to look at at Couch. I got to take a bunch of pictures in between the busy times so they're all at the bottom. We ate lunch and had some of the delicious pie that Laysie put away for us (pic below) which was sugar free and fantastic. Afterwards we drove to the union bookstore because they're having a sale on all their clearance merchandise and we get 40% off! If anyone is interested in a t-shirt or anything just let me know and I can pick something up. We drove back to our office after that and didn't have too much to work on. It was a quiet game in comparison to yesterday. We were supposed to go to a meeting in the afternoon but apparently it was just 'airing out dirty laundry'. Sounded like it would have had some juicy drama but it just ended up being a resignation from the director here. So now we get to witness all the changes that ned to be made with regards to finding someone to take over the position. We're just working on our project tomorrow but not much else. Went to the bank and the pool once we got home and now we're just watching the b-ball game. I'll probably update on the weekend!

Laysie and Kelsey in the Bakery

Part of "The View" @ Couch

Personal TVs to sit at and Check In (right)

TVs

Chick-fil-a (fast food line)

La Roma, Athens, and Freshens (still in the View)

Biiiiig Screen TV

Drink Station (they even have powerade)

Vegetation Station in 'home' (where the main lines are for summer camps and salad/dessert bars)

Shanghai Stir-Fry and Casa del Sol (in 'smokehouse')

Smokehouse

The Sweet Shoppe (usually filled during the academic year)

Breakfast Club for early risers

Seating in 'smokehouse'

Part of Dry Storage

Menu During Academic Year

Menu Con't

Fab Pie from Laysie :)