Dining

Getting That Bread: Cornell Dining’s Mystery Shopper Program

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For many students with meal plans, the Mystery Shopper Program has been a long-time subject of curiosity. Aiming to recognize outstanding eateries and improve the dining experience, this initiative is real and offers students the dream job: to eat meals at select cafes and dining halls on an hourly wage in addition to reimbursement for the meal. All that’s required is a brief online review preceded by subtle, discrete and unannounced visits to dining units. 

In late February, the opportunity was formally opened to students with a meal plan during Spring of 2024. Now, over a month later, there are 70 total mystery shoppers traveling to 29 different dining units. Started by former Assistant Director Of Staff Training & Development Therese O’Connor, the program has expanded dramatically over the years, helping Cornell maintain its reputation and high rankings, such as having the second “Best Campus Food” per the Princeton Review.

Dining

Behind the Scenes of Cornell Dining: Meet Tashi Mondak

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BY Noga Tenzin and Daniela Rojas

Tashi Mondak, who has worked as a Food Service employee at Cornell for over eight years, offers a perspective to students regarding the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of Cornell Dining: the time, effort and energy it takes to work in dining often goes unnoticed. What is unnoticed should often be appreciated, especially in the world of food service. Mondak’s role has changed overtime, from Statler hotel as dishwasher, to working in Mac’s Cafe and Cornell Catering, to his current job in Morrison Dining. He notes the differences in atmosphere within a particular eatery is largely dependent on the number of diners that come on a daily basis. Mac’s Cafe typically only has 1,000 people per day, whereas Morrison Dining can have up to 5,000.

Dining

Eatery Remains App-etizing: Unbeatable Convenience

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The Cornell Eatery app, developed by Cornell AppDev, is just like your favorite foods in your pantry: reliable with a wide-array of choices. With their new software update, it occurred to me that the app is more than just a cool thing to have access to; it’s something that provides a needed convenience for many students like myself. 

The update, which launched on October 12, creates a “renewed user interface” alongside new tools for exploring and saving favorite foods on the app. The Sun reported that Eatery hosts 3,500 daily users and 11,000 monthly users. Eatery was developed as Cornell AppDev’s debut flagship app. The app is nothing short of a success, being originally introduced in 2014.

Columns

WEIRENS | A Fruitless Endeavor

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The crowning irony of this phenomenon is that Cornell has our own research Orchards on campus, and we’re arguably the greatest school for agriculture in the world. How come our fruit selection is so appalling?

Columns

GUEST ROOM | Dear Cornell: You’re Breaking the Law and Students Are Going Hungry

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Some are surely immune to it by now, but most food service workers can remember the first time they had to chuck pounds upon pounds of perfectly edible food into the waste bin while on the job. The same holds true for students and full-time workers at Cornell Dining. Its a sort of collective trauma that countless workers share. While such superfluous and unthinking waste is tragically commonplace across private food providers across the country, in recent years we have seen legal interventions come into effect that should result in dramatic reductions in food waste. The NYS Food Donation and Food Scrap Recycling Law, which took effect Jan.