Crown Food Service Advisor (FSA)

Keep an eye out for Crown's Food Service Advisor (FSA), Sylvie Boenke-Bowden (sboenkeb@ucsc.edu), when you're in the Crown Dining Hall. Sylvie conducts surveys on food quality and satisfaction. She can answer your questions and help relay your feedback to the dining hall staff and management. If you can't find Sylvie, you can always fill out a comment card, located by the ice cream.

Banana Joe's Cafe and other retail dining services on campus also have an FSA. If you have comments or feedback about service, hours or menu options please let Rosa Arce (rarce@ucsc.edu) know. Rosa also conducts surveys about your retail dining experience.

Get Cooking at Crown
The Crown/Merrill Cooking Club sponsors classes in the Dining Hall throughout the year. Last year, students made treats ranging from pumpkin bread and baklava to cranberry sauce and cheese! For more info, email your Crown Food Service Advisor.

The Kitchen in Gauss house is available on a limited basis for your personal use. It is stocked with cookware and utensils. Check out a key from the Crown Residential Education Office - 2 hour maximum.

The Lionel Cantu GLBTI Resource Center located near KZSC between Crown and Merrill also has a kitchen that students can use. They'd be happy to have you stop by.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1) Q: I have the 5-Day Meal Plan, which isn't working out for me. How can I upgrade to the 7-Day Meal Plan?
     A: You can upgrade your meal plan anytime on the dining website: http://dining.ucsc.edu. Go to "meal plan details", then to "changing your current meal plan", where you can upgrade at anytime. You can change to a lower meal plan here as well, but there are specific filing dates to do so each quarter.

2) Q: Can we get Teriyaki sauce out at the condiment table?
     A: good question! I have spoken to management, and we have some teriyaki sauce in the kitchen, so we've ordered some squeeze bottles to put them out for you. (See how easy that was? Some requests are fairly easy to carry out, it's just a matter of asking. Sometimes, due to the companies we order from, prices, or difficulty, we can't always respond to every request. But you never know until you ask!)

3) Q: The other day at lunch, there was a chow mien dish with beef being served, but no vegetarian option. What's up with that?
     A: We try our best to accommodate vegetarians and vegans, but sometimes slips in the menu happen. Good news though: if you ever see a dish with meat, cheese, nuts, etc. anything in it you don't want, or are allergic to, you can always ask a worker to have the chef prepare that entree free of that particular item you cannot eat. Your needs are important to us, and we want to do whatever we can to accommodate you!

4) Q: I had a dish, Apple Glazed Chicken, one time over the summer here. Would it be possible to have it again?
     A: If you've had it here before, that probably means we have the recipe. I asked the head University chef Dwight to send it to our chef Geraldine, and she said you should see it one the dinner menu sometime in the next week!

5) Q: I love the Smoothie bar! But I always feel like I'm making a mess, could we get a small trashcan put there?
     A: Good suggestion, a trashcan has been put there, and our staff appreciates your courtesy!

6) Q: I noticed the chicken in the Cesar Chicken Wrap has changed from fried to grilled. It's much better that way, please keep it!
     A: Thank you for letting me know, we changed it due to similar requests. We change/tweak our recipes quite a bit, so if you like/dislike something about a menu item, please let me know! You will very likely see things change to your liking!!

Ask the Crown FSA a question or leave a comment: