Food vendors’ sales at GDS have dropped recently due to an increase in use of delivery services as well as the availability of the new lower/middle school (LMS) campus cafeteria.
Currently, Crisp and Juicy, a Peruvian restaurant, and Pizza Boli’s, an Italian restaurant, set up tables in the Internet Cafe every Thursday and Monday, respectively. At the beginning of the year, Hardy’s Barbeque Truck sold food outside of the high school’s front doors, but it has recently stopped coming.
According to Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy, GDS has been inviting outside food vendors for decades due to the school’s lack of a cafeteria. When the LMS moved to Davenport St. in 2021, it included a cafeteria which still serves LMS students and all faculty and staff.
“They’re not selling anywhere near as much as they used to,” Killy said of the vendors. He speculated that the decrease in sales was because the students don’t know the vendors’ schedules and, therefore, Killy has begun posting them on the screen in the Forum. Killy told the Bit that when he posts signs in the Forum sales tend to increase, but they always “trickle back down.”
When asked about how many GDS students buy lunch, Pizza Boli’s vendor Rama Anwar said, “Less now. Two years ago more students bought from us.”
Sophomore Lulu Tirado said that some vendors accept only cash, which is restricting for her, as she rarely carries it.
“Sometimes I’m just not in the mood for chicken or pizza, so I go out and get something I am in the mood for,” freshman Nathan Tureck said.
The LMS cafeteria provides food for high school staff members. Killy said the convenience of having a food service at the LMS has decreased the number of faculty who regularly ate at local restaurants and food vendors. “Faculty used to go walk and get lunch, too, and now they just go to the LMS cafeteria. Maybe some faculty used to buy from lunch vendors, and they just don’t now,” Killy said.
According to Killy, food vendors have been coming to the school for over 25 years. Previous vendors include Timber Pizza, a crepe truck and Muncheez, a Lebanese restaurant.
Killy also said that COVID has influenced the school’s lunch culture. “We got into new habits, and we kind of settled into a new norm,” he said. “The combination of that and all the take-out services and the delivery services has shifted how we do lunches,” he added.
Frequently, students order food through various delivery services, even from restaurants within walking distance such as Chick-fil-A or Coffee Nature. The delivery drivers place orders on a small table by the security desk.
Junior Jada Asku said she orders from DoorDash, a popular delivery site, two to three times per week. “Honestly, I do like the food vendors. It’s just they don’t have them as often as I would like,” she said.
Some students choose to walk to off-campus restaurants for lunch. Doing so, however, takes away time that could be spent attending clubs or meeting with teachers.
“I used to DoorDash a lot last year just because I was busier and didn’t have time to go off campus, so I would DoorDash something and eat it during a meeting,” senior Sophia Newkirk said.
“I think that in some ways it’s a bummer because kids used to spend time together, walking someplace, and they’d get out and they’d get some fresh air,” Killy said of the increase in food delivery sites. “Now, so many people do the delivery system that I think less kids are going off campus.”
Many students bring lunches from home, but for some, it is too much of a hassle. “When I’m sleeping in the morning I don’t want to pack a lunch,” Newkirk said. She added that she goes off-campus for lunch about three times a week.
Sophomore Cai Roberson said she brings lunch from home because it saves money and only uses Doordash on the rare occasions when she forgets to bring food.
Compared to numerous other lunch options, food vendors have struggled to compete. “They’re businesses and they love our community, and they love the kids but they can’t be losing money when they come here,” Killy said.
“The students are nice, and they like our pizza,” Anwar said. However, he acknowledged that sales have dropped recently.
Killy was unsure whether the food vendors would want to return next fall. “They might be like, ‘Yeah, we’ll come back,’ or they might be like, ‘hey, it’s just not worth it for us anymore,’” he said.