San Francisco is remodeling its public school cafeterias to make them more attractive to students, according to stories in The Atlantic and on KGO-TV. The idea is to ensure students eat a nourishing meal. The first step, a switch to fresher meals, brought little response. The schools, aided by a grant, asked the design firm Ideo for its ideas. “Everyone focuses on the food,” an Ideo official told The Atlantic. “We knew that in order to get the kids to eat, the atmosphere had to be enjoyable.” Roosevelt Middle School was the first school to go through the re-design.
One Roosevelt student told KGO, “It’s a more fun cafeteria.” Says KGO, “There are different kinds of tables for all kinds of purposes like reading, socializing and just hanging out…. Instead of having one long lunch line, there are now two. On the other side of the cafeteria, there’s another pick-up counter. There’s even a ro-l out food cart outside so kids can grab their food and play.”
The Atlantic says the school district “plans to roll out changes gradually.” In elementary schools, the emphasis will be family-style dining at round tables with an adult leader. For middle school, there will be more options for picking up food and areas for socializing or for eating quietly. High school students “will be able to use an app to see nutritional information and prices, preorder meals, and give feedback,” says The Atlantic.
The San Francisco public-school system has a web page on its “future dining experience”that includes “a financially stable food system that provides fresh, healthy meals to students as they grow.”