On June 13 at 5am, a team of construction workers dressed in bright green swarmed Parker’s empty cafeteria and began tearing down walls and ripping up floors. The renovation–which lasted 60 hours per week until the days leading up to the commencement of school–resulted in a redesigned cafeteria with an updated kitchen space and three new food counters surrounded by green and black stone and wooden walls.  

Other additions to the 2,100 foot space include a relocated cooler and dry food storage room, both of which can be seen from the science hall.  There is also a new sandwich serving line in addition to the hot lunch line, as well as a smoothie and juice bar and an omelet station in the mornings.  TV monitors set next to new large barn doors next to the hallway and outside the servery project the menu for each day.  

“I’m excited,” head chef Zac Maness said. “I think it looks very nice.  It’s new and updated and beautiful.  But it’s not going to be without its challenges. The footprint itself didn’t get that much bigger, so we’re still pushing a large number of students through a small space.”  

The planning started in November 2014 when Quest food service brought in a design group to analyze the cafeteria space. The group started taking measurements and pictures to draft a new cafeteria proposal.

One of the main reasons that a renovation plan was created was safety, according to Maness. A portion of the kitchen staff had to work over the sink, there was a slicer on a moveable cart, and the grill and all of the hot material were open and on a working station.  

“The other reasons was it was just old and outdated and not up to code,” Maness said. “There were a lot of code issues, so now we’ll be safer and up to code, and things will be better in that aspect.”

Once the proposal was introduced to the school, the facilities committee, headed by Director of Facilities Rick Dusing, and composed of alumni and parents, formed it into a set plan.

A year and a half later, Berglund Construction Company came to Parker and spearheaded the renovation.  The company has renovated many other cafeterias in the past.

“It was time to modernize and update the old cafeteria and make things better and look nicer,” Superintendent Pete Frolik said. “It’s been a fast-paced job, a really fast-paced job, and we had to get everything done.”

As the staff adjusts to the new layout, the hope is to serve a greater variety of meals.  Maness also hope that the lines will go down.

“The first couple months will be very rough, just like when you move into a new house, and you go to reach for your toothbrush, but you walk in the wrong room,” Maness said.  “It’ll be a learning process for us, trying to move in, but eventually it’ll be great because everything will be new, and the kitchen hasn’t been touched in so long.  So now the kitchen is up to the rest of the school’s standards.”