DURHAM, N.H. — A restaurant dedicated to good, healthy food, excellent service, and sustainability has been recognized by its peers as one of the best of its kind in the United States and Canada.
A local retail operation run by UNH Dining Services also doubling as a train station, the UNH Dairy Bar recently won a silver dining award in the “Retail Sales – Single Concept” category in the National Association of College & University Food Services annual Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards competition. Also competing in the same category were the University of Missouri, who received a gold award, and the University of Massachusetts, with a bronze win.
UNH also won a silver award in the “Residential Dining Special Event” category for its first-ever Harry Potter Night, which was held in Holloway Commons Dining Hall.
Find out what's happening in Exeterwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The NACUFS awards are the ultimate in peer recognition, according to Kristin Lonsinger, senior marketing coordinator for UNH Dining Services. UNH competes in the large school classification along with such schools as Harvard University and the University of Connecticut for these coveted awards. The dining award contest is no less competitive than football games or hockey matches when it comes to the will to win.
The Dairy Bar contest entry was put together in a big scrapbook with such categories as “Menu and Meal,” “Facility Design and Merchandising,” “Marketing, Nutrition and Wellness,” and “Other Considerations.” As the NACUFS contest booklet instructs, “Judges will be looking for items that convey creativity, atmosphere, and uniqueness.” Points are deducted if elements are missing from the entry.
Find out what's happening in Exeterwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“It’s a couple of month’s work on the entry,” Lonsinger said recently, sitting at a Dairy Bar corner booth on a partly cloudy summer day. As she spoke, students sat inside the late-1800s historical passenger depot and outside at tables. “It’s a lot of criteria and definitely a lot of time and effort to put these together.”
Marketing assistant Tiffany Wilson, a graphic designer, coordinated and produced the final entry book for the Dairy Bar, while Lonsinger completed the accompanying Harry Potter entry for the Special Event category. The pair sent the books by FedEx the day before they were due at NACUFS headquarters in Michigan.
After the entry deadline had passed, Lonsinger began daily to go on the NACUFS Web site to see if UNH had won. “I was on vacation in Long Island, and I got up that morning and was checking my phone, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve won for the Dairy Bar.’ And then I saw that we also won for Harry Potter.”
UNH has about 25 NACUFS awards under its belt, but it had not won one in a few years, “so to win two in one year is really great,” Lonsinger said. “Obviously, my boss was thrilled because we can use that in our marketing, that we’re an award-winning dining program. We can say that and say why.”
A photo accompanying the contest essay takes an angular view of the Dairy Bar with its period sign that reflects the Dairy Bar’s values: “Local*Sustainable*Fresh.” As the contest entry states in the Marketing section, “From a historical passenger depot in the late-1800s to a sustainable restaurant in 2013, the Dairy Bar is the perfect example of the past and current times and displays marketing that is both traditional and contemporary. The original wooden sign was kept as a nod to the old UNH Dairy Bar. It was simply refitted with a new tagline.”
In the essay itself, Director of Dining Services Jon Plodzik writes that the Dairy Bar’s “unique retail concept offers the best in locally sourced products, served in a sustainable way in a historic 1895 active train station. In fact, we believe so much in that connection, we partnered with one of UNH’s colleges, purchased two greenhouses, filled them with compost generated from campus food waste and grow vegetables year round as part of a hands-on classroom.”
He adds: “Picking those vegetables at the peak of their freshness and incorporating them into a cleverly themed railroad menu has made this retail concept a real winner in guest satisfaction, education and financials.”
UNH Dining Culinary staff developed the menu with help from a team of dietetic interns from the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. Also, a team of nutrition faculty from the Department of Cellular, Molecular, & Biomedical Sciences served as consultants to the project. The goal was to create a healthy, nutritious and delicious menu.
The contest entry’s Menu and Meal section notes that the Dairy Bar is open daily and “features favorites like Gifford’s Famous ice cream made locally in nearby Maine, wholesome breakfast items and upscale sandwiches and local greens, all served in compostable packaging to limit the environmental impact.”
Should you be walking outside on a sunny spring, summer or early-fall day, take note that two ice cream windows are located in the building’s front to allow patrons to order and pick up outside. Guests can also enjoy nice weather on picnic benches adjacent to the train platform. And indoor seating with a view of the tracks allows patrons a place to relax while waiting for the train.
The train station makes the Dairy Bar “unique,” Lonsinger said, and the contest entry notes that the eatery has Vetrazzo recycled glass countertops used throughout, reflecting the sustainable mission of the Dairy Bar.”
The Dairy Bar sells a variety of local roasts and flavors from NH Java Tree gourmet Coffees.
The eatery presents other green aspects. “Most to-go packaging that we use is compostable. Everything we can get our hands on to use in here is either compostable or made from recycled materials,” Lonsinger said. The Dairy Bar’s marketing efforts highlight on its Web site all the vendors from whom it buys local products. “It’s a pretty long list,” she said.
As luck would have it, President Barack Obama visited the Dairy Bar on June 25, 2012, and the contest entry features photos of the visit. “That was the Yahoo photo of the day,” Lonsinger noted, pointing at a photo of the Yahoo posting.” I found out that he was going to be here 10 minutes before it happened. I tried to get down here to take my pictures and do my thing, but I couldn’t get in. None of the management could get in here. So it was our students who were running Dairy Bar that day.”
UNH was the first college campus to use Guiding Stars survey information to inform students about the health of its food. Food items must have certain healthy ingredients to get one, two or three stars, “so you can look at the menu and see … which is the healthiest item for you to eat that day,” Lonsinger said.
Lonsinger said, however, that the information in the last section — “Other Considerations”— put the UNH Dairy Bar entry over the top. “I think the thing that really helped us win this year was the greenhouse initiative. We didn’t have that in 2009 (when the Dairy Bar last entered the contest), adding, “Growing our greens right on campus, and serving them that day, right after they’ve been picked. It’s not happening at any other college, and I think that really helped us win.”
The UNH Dairy Bar is a business partner of the Green Alliance, a union of local sustainable businesses promoting environmentally sound business practices and a green co-op offering discounted green products and services to its members. The Green Alliance published a story about the Dairy Bar on its blog and on a local-news Web site, a photo of which was featured in the entry. Also featured was the Green Alliance’s assessment of the Dairy Bar’s sustainable practices, an 8.84 rating out of a possible 10.
“It was nice to show this because, keep in mind that this entry was being judged by people from all over the country,” Lonsinger said. “And it’s people who work at dining programs at different colleges. And they’re all sitting in a room in Michigan, and they don’t know what the Green Alliance is. But they can look at this and say, ‘This is what they do.’”
She added: “And then we put a big photo of our freshly grown greens right at the end of the contest entry because the judges want to see a ‘wow’ factor. So you always want to include a nice photo that tells the story. That’s what it’s all about.”
For more information about the UNH Dairy Bar, visit www.unh.edu/dairy-bar/. And for the Green Alliance, visit www.greenalliance.biz.
