This year, Poly switched their K-12 food provider from Bevaris Alliance to Epicurean Group. Kevin Austin, Associate Director of Auxiliary Programs, led a committee of faculty, staff, and parents responsible for the shift. Austin explained that continued student and parent complaints prompted Poly to send out a survey about Bevaris in the 2024-2025 school year.
The results convinced the committee to ask for proposals from other providers, searching for one that would provide good food and had a suitable business model. Epicurean’s proposal proved the most promising; some of the others would have required a raise in tuition or exposed Poly to greater financial risk.
“We were impressed by their focus on sustainability and healthy foods, which is something that the community values deeply,” Upper School Director José Melgoza remarked. “We also wanted a food provider that had some creativity around providing food and snacks outside of lunchtime, and they provided a pretty robust menu of options for us.”
Austin also noted that Epicurean has invested in upgrading spaces and purchasing new kitchen equipment. Like in the past with Bevaris, the food provider contract makes Epicurean, rather than Poly, responsible for any profits or losses. Still, Poly does not profit off of Epicurean’s sales.
“We are a non-profit institution, so making a profit off of Epicurean was not our goal,” Melgoza asserted.
Epicurean began serving food over the summer, at PolySummer and a student leadership summit in August. Some students, though, have complained about Epicurean’s offerings during regular school days.
Junior Caralee Wang reflected, “When I first tried Epicurean’s food during the leadership summit, I thought the food was really good, especially the chicken, and I was impressed by the variety of options presented. But after the school year [began], I was a bit disappointed by Epicurean’s small portion sizes and the lack of options in terms of chips and snacks.”
In the first weeks of school, Epicurean, at times, has struggled to meet demand, leaving students upset by shortages. Sophomore Dannika Rivera commented, “You go up there, and there’s no food! The only food source on campus doesn’t have food.”
“The fact that we can’t go off campus makes the line longer,” sophomore Mariana Morales pointed out, adding that the removal of a grab-and-go food truck from last year has exacerbated long queues.
Melgoza acknowledged these challenges and noted, “They’re very responsive to our feedback and have made adjustments, and I think that’s very promising.”
In addition, Poly has made changes to Fun Food Friday (FFF). In prior years, FFF was a fundraising tradition where student groups sold lunches on Fridays to students and faculty, usually food purchased from local fast-food restaurants. Now, Epicurean provides these lunches, with input from student groups, and gives some of the proceeds back to these groups.
Melgoza explained, “We, as an institution, are trying to go away from having outside vendors on campus. For a while, because we had an open campus, students were used to going out to fast food vendors, [and] we had a tolerance for it.”
“I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to still have fun foods but hopefully a little bit healthier than what you’d get at the typical fast food restaurant,” Melgoza added.
Despite some early challenges in Epicurean’s food service, the administration urges students to give Epicurean some time to make adjustments. Community members can send feedback to epicurean@polytechnic.org, an email address monitored by Epicurean as well as Austin himself. Poly also plans to conduct a survey in late September.
Austin reflected, “They have been making improvements. I would expect them to still make improvements, and I’m looking forward to—we’ll be doing a community survey later in September—to kind of gauge where they are. You would expect a brand new company, though, to need to iron out some operational pieces.”
