Chef Zac Maness, the Executive Chef and Food Service Director for the Parker cafeteria, walks through the kitchen, phone in hand, ready to take a photo of the cafeteria’s food during preparation for Parker’s cafeteria instagram: @fwpkitchen. Maness shares the photos on Instagram, which has over 282 million posts tagged with #food. He shares pictures of the food two to four times a week, or when it feels right for him to post.

“I just wander through the kitchen and see whatever sparks my eye, whatever’s colorful, and I’ll take that picture,” Maness said. For pictures of entrées, he spends a little extra time plating the food.

“When I plate food for a photo, I choose a plate that looks nice with the food and then arrange the food as pretty as possible on the plate,” Maness said. “I then try to find nice lighting and a background that is either not distracting or complements the food.”

He uses the social media platform to showcase the kitchen’s fresh cooking. “I wanted to look for ways to reach the students, the parents, the faculty, and anybody else in the world that might be interested in scratch food cooking from a school standpoint,” Maness said.

He used to manage a Twitter account to share photos of the cafeteria services. He switched to Instagram and started using it in fall of 2017 due to its greater popularity among students. He posts photos of food from the Parker kitchen, using his degree in film production to benefit the cafeteria. The account currently has 53 followers.

As the Executive Chef and Food Service Director, Maness oversees the food service program, writes menus, orders ingredients for the Parker kitchen, and manages the staff. He started cooking in third grade, while he was homeschooled by his mom, with whom he grocery shopped and cooked.

“I would study and do lessons with my mom in the morning until lunch,” Maness said. “We would cook lunch together and then our afternoons were filled with life experiences.” He cooked meals for himself and his four younger brothers at their historic, 14- acre farm, where he assisted with farming and other chores.

Parker is the first school kitchen in which Maness has worked, but he has worked in other bakeries and restaurants prior to joining the Parker kitchen staff. During college, he worked in a French restaurant in Denver, as a busboy, server, and bartender. While working there, he became friends with the owner, who inspired him to pursue a culinary career. He also worked in a small bakery in Michigan where he arrived every morning at 2:00 am, and at local restaurants here in Chicago.

Chef Zac works for Quest Food Management Services at present. Founded in 1985 in Lombard, IL, Quest now has over 75 partnerships across the Midwest with businesses, colleges, and schools, including Parker. They strive to provide fresh food cooked from scratch. Many other cafeterias partnered with Quest also run social media accounts, such as @depaulcafe and @stignatiusquest.

Across town, Gary Wagoner, the Food Service Director at Saint Ignatius––another Quest Cafeteria––uses Twitter to interact with the students and faculty. “The reason why we use Twitter is because the students here have a limited time to eat lunch and we offer a lot of different variety of food here,” Wagoner said. “So we really did make it easier for the students to decide what they want to eat before they come into our serving area.”

Wagoner posts four photos on the account a day: a menu photo and photos of the three main entreés. “They’re able to go on and pick one of those and know which area they want to go to so it helps keep the lines down,” Wagoner said. “It just helps make the whole process more efficient. They know that at 10 a.m. they can go on our Twitter site and they’re going to see what we’re serving that day.”

Not many students or teachers happen to follow Maness’ Instagram, as most do not realize he has an account for the kitchen. “I don’t follow Chef Zac but I think more students would follow it and find it helpful if he posted the menu and pictures of the different food items each day,” freshman Sofia Brown said.

Freshman Leilani Kulkarni said, “I didn’t know he had an account for the cafeteria. I think it’s cool how he is showing off the Parker kitchen.”

“My goal is to showcase the program,” Maness said. “The people that are in the kitchen, running the kitchen program are all dedicated, creative and incredibly talented. We care. We really are concerned that the food that we are putting out is delicious, there’s enough of it, it’s on time, it’s healthy and the students like it. That’s our top goal.”