Brooklyn student Leslie Gomez Rivera used to avoid the Midwood High School cafeteria at all costs, spending her lunchtime in classrooms or the library and sometimes going the whole day without eating.
It wasn’t just the food keeping her away — the sprawling lunchroom felt impersonal and overwhelming with its long, banquet-style tables and daily crush of students.
“It was an intimidating place,” Gomez Rivera, a 17-year-old senior, said.
That all changed several months into Gomez Rivera’s freshman year, when Midwood gave its cafeteria a major facelift through an Education Department pilot program to improve the eating experience in school lunchrooms.
The new design looked more like a food court or college cafeteria, with display cases offering a variety of prepackaged meals to go, a mix of four-person, diner-style booths, two-tops with swiveling chairs, larger round tables, and colorful signs adorning the walls.
“I remember walking in and I was like, Oh wow, this is cool,” Gomez Rivera said. “I felt comfortable because I felt like it was more intimate … it kind of brought out a more friendly environment.”
She began going to the cafeteria most days to eat lunch — giving her more energy during the school day and boosting her social life.
Advocates and food policy experts say that’s exactly the intended effect of the DOE’s “cafeteria enhancement” program, which has now reached 45 middle and high school cafeterias citywide.
“It removes the institutional feel and just makes it more welcoming,” said Liz Accles, the executive director of the nonprofit Community Food Advocates. “We all want to be in a place that’s more welcoming feeling.”
And preliminary data show it’s working. The first 15 school buildings that enhanced their cafeterias saw a 35% jump in the number of students eating school lunch, according to an analysis by Community Food Advocates. Proponents are now pushing the city to expand the program to all 500 cafeterias serving middle and high school students.
“We’re very excited that the mayor is very focused on food issues,” said Accles. “We see this as really a way to transform high schools and middle schools.”
The DOE’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services began piloting the cafeteria enhancements in 2017. The overhauls do not require any renovation — they usually involve swapping out seating, replacing traditional food service lines with display cases, and redecorating, and can be accomplished in a single weekend at an average cost of roughly $500,000 per lunchroom, according to advocates.
The redesigns can bring a host of secondary benefits, too.
A study by the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food and Education Policy at Columbia University Teachers College found that students in enhanced cafeterias gained two extra minutes to eat because the lines moved more efficiently.
Schools with the enhanced cafeterias also ended up serving significantly more fruits and vegetables because the new display cases allow cafeteria workers to present items like premade salads in more appealing ways, Accles said.
“What I’ve seen overnight, literally, is the whole stigma of school food shift because of the mere presentation of the food,” said Rashad Meade, the principal of Eagle Academy for Young Men in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, whose cafeteria got an upgrade two months ago.
“I’ve never seen our boys consume so much salad in their lives,” Meade adding, noting that students were so excited that they posted selfies in the new cafeteria to social media. “It’s kind of just changed the way our young men engage with food in the building.”
Shirley Aubin, a Queens parent, said the cafeteria upgrade at the Jamaica Campus, where her daughter attended middle school, led to fewer students leaving campus for lunch — saving families money and easing safety concerns.
“It keeps them on school grounds instead of going to fast food,” she said. “Sometimes they go to a restaurant just because they want to sit in a booth and socialize.”
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed efforts to grow the program, with new projects stalled and some schools including Midwood clearing out the new furniture to maintain social distancing in their lunchrooms. But with those requirements lifted, and the city flush with federal stimulus funds, advocates say it’s a perfect time to reboot and expand the initiative.
In addition to the 45 already completed enhancements, there are plans for 40 more, and officials are working on ways to expand the program even further, a DOE spokeswoman said.
“This exciting and innovative program will allow the DOE to continue to prioritize the health and wellbeing of every child, doubling down on our commitment to increasing access to nutritious meals for all students,” said spokeswoman Jenna Lyle.
Advocates add that the program can help pay for itself by boosting student participation rates, which brings additional reimbursement from the federal government.
For students like Gomez Rivera, any costs are well worth it. If students don’t have access to nutritious meals, she pointed out, they’ll have trouble concentrating.
“It’s not just about our lunch,” she said. “It’s about our education.”
