Feeding an average family of 4 with two teenagers is hard enough, but feeding 570 busy athletic teens at once takes an army. Three times a day, seven days a week, for ten months, the Kent School Dining Hall staff takes on the challenge of not only satiating the students but also making them happy with their options.

One of the most well-known Dining Hall veterans is Harold. Harold has worked at Kent for the past 40 years, since he was sixteen years old. All this time, he has been around to see everyone come and go. What he enjoys most about his position are the kids. “That’s what I’m proud of,” he says. “I love to see the graduates come back to visit the school.”

But how does the Dining Hall staff prepare such a large amount of food?  Harold, in charge of breakfast, recounted the long process that occurs each morning. “I come in early in the morning, between 5:30 and 6am, and get breakfast ready by 6:40. I open up about 5 minutes before 7am,” he explains, “so the students have enough time to relax.”

But Harold doesn’t just run breakfast; he also helps out with lunch, perhaps Kent School’s busiest meal. Lunch can be trying. All the stations open—the deli, the stir-fry station, the salad bar, the express lane, and the bakery—and all hands are on deck at the hot food line, where the bulk of the food is served.

The Dining Hall is a fast-paced section of Kent School, with a schedule explained by Alice Zakhar, Dining Hall Food Service Director, as “making one meal, executing it, cleaning up, and then it’s time to start the next meal.” In her words, it is “an endless cycle that is constantly moving forward.”

Zakhar pointed out that “there have been a lot of changes since I first started here, when it was very basic. You had one item for your main entrée, and maybe if you were lucky you got something that was warmed up from the night before.” Now, the Dining Hall staff makes it their goal to spice up the menu and provide something everyone would like to eat.

What all the staff enjoy about their job is the students, which is why they work so hard to build off any feedback they receive. Zakhar put it simply: “We really want everyone to be happy and cater to what they want and need.”