Food for Thought Comment Box

COMMENT: Dear Food for Thought,

I love you all. All of you who work here, I love you. I love the coffee and the food and the art and the music. I know that sometimes people get mad when it’s crowded and busy but I’m happy to see you getting business. Without FFT, PSU wouldn’t be nearly as cool to me. Love for all!

PS. “Food for thought” was an awesome cheat in Starcraft…which is awesome.

RESPONSE: Holy jesus, that’s the nicest comment ever! Thank you so much! I don’t know what Starcraft is though…

COMMENT: HI FOOD FOR THOUGHT FOLKS =)

I really appreciate the values behind FFT’s buying standards and operations. The fact that you switched coffee companies this Fall (and all reasons behind that choice are so great!)! I love that you attempt to offer sustainable and healthier options for our PSU community. Our campus population should be a community modeling personal and environmental health awareness! I also adore the atmosphere you all put together. The GREAT music, the piano, and oh - the art everywhere makes me so proud to belong to PSU.

However over the past year and a half I have earnestly hoped to walk in here and see a few baked goods with higher nutritional content/density. It’s possible to do this with vegan/G.F. options. I would love to (and have been wanting to) talk to someone at FFT about making this happen. I am a passionate home-baker, health/nutrition nerd and often cook vegan/G.F. delicious baked goods. Please do contact me for feedback (at the least =) ) OR to let me know how I can get involved. Thanks & <3 you guys. [Name and contact removed]

RESPONSE: Thanks for the well thought-out note! The vast majority, if not all, of our baked goods are, in fact, vegan, which I’m sure you are aware of. We have experimented with a variety of gluten-free options and we’ve got a new provider (the name of which is currently escaping me) this term, so make sure to try those out as well!

As far as making the baked goods more nutritious, I’m not sure I totally get what you mean. I, too, wish that I could come in and just grab a baked good that would be super nutritious, but the fact remains that that’s simply not the nature of baked goods. I have requested the bakers to make granola bars in the past, which I was a fan of, but they never sold well so we couldn’t justify continuing to make them. So for the most part, if you’re looking for vegan and gluten-free baked goods, we got you covered, and if you’re looking for vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free AND nutritious entrees, we’ve ALSO got you covered, but vegan, gluten-free, AND nutritional baked goods? No, not really. Baked goods are strictly super delicious; good for you in the soul-department, but not so much the nutrition-department.

We’d always be interested if you have any recipes to share, however, so feel free to drop them in the comment box and I can pass them on to the bakers!

COMMENT: The menu changes every day which makes it less boring. Such a variety so hard to decide. Always yummy!

RESPONSE: Rad!

COMMENT: Please, please, please have gluten-free baked goods. Thx. I miss them.

RESPONSE: We do most of the time! The bakers have taken up making gluten-free stuff in-house, and we sometimes order gluten-free cookies from this one place.

COMMENT: I <3 you and what you do.

<3 Salads

<3 Homies (want more)

<3 Real dairy cheese

<3 Cupcakes + 2!

<3 This use of my fee money.

=)  =)  =)

RESPONSE: WOOHOO!

COMMENT: We all like salt but the tofu scramble is OVERKILL! Yuck!

RESPONSE: Whoops sorry! I don’t think it’s usually too bad (‘cause I eat it every day and I HATE over-salted stuff), it must have been a slip-up. Thanks for letting us know!

COMMENT: (Dated 4/14/11) You guys made my day! Macaroni + Cheese and B+W cookies! Thankfully I ran before I came here to eat so I am able to enjoy both today. XOXO

PS I wrote a note asking for B+W cookies last week. So thanks! I don’t know if you got it or if the universe was listening … If the latter is the case then I need to meditate harder on world peace!

RESPONSE: Don’t we all!

COMMENT: I don’t know if you can buy bulk/wholesale Toby’s Tofu Pate, but you guys could make hella dollar bills if you sold it as an option w/toast or on wraps or whatever. <3

RESPONSE: Good idea, I loooove that sh*t! And it’s somewhat local ‘cause it’s from Eugene (as am I). I know we’re on an EXTREMELY tight budget right now, but I’ll see if the kitchen folks wanna take up this idea.

COMMENT: Why are most of these comments so mean? =(

The people at FFT are friendly and courteous and super cute (but that isn’t a huge deal). For goodness sake, you’re cooking food for strangers. How can people honestly complain when somebody makes food for them?

PS: <3

RESPONSE: Thank you so much! This is totally opposite from the last comment I responded to. I know that we have our bad days, but we do try really hard! The mean comments on the comment box I printed out from Yelp.com because I thought they were really funny. I find that folks who write stuff on Yelp are sometimes extra mean, but I thought I’d sort of turn it around and own what they were saying about us by glueing their comments on our comment box, which is a more direct way of communicating than just saying stuff about us online. Thanks for your comment/compliment!

COMMENT: I want to like Food for Thought. I stop by somewhat regularly, for the convenient location, for the philosophy and food …

but the service sucks. Folks are usually unfriendly - but SLOW. INEFFICIENT. Too many times, I’ve been late for a class or a meeting because getting an americano and a pastry took more than ten minutes (not waiting in line - but from the point that I ordered!) Sometimes, folks are rude in that they stand around chatting about their personal lives. If you don’t mind sharing what you and your boyfriend did this last weekend - that’s fine! Gossip is interesting. But ceasing to bring people their orders, make the drinks they have already paid for and keeping them waiting, making them late … not cool.

The lack of windows, the tables that never get wiped down, the fact that anything from the kitchen will take 20 mintues … these I can put up with. (I just don’t order food if I don’t have an hour).

Please, please, please - respect the time constraints of your customers. Redesign your prep work, try a different service model, just please be aware that there’s a world of classes out there and we have to get to them!

RESPONSE: I hear you. I, as an employee, have seen these things happen as well. It’s frustrating, and they do get brought up, and we do try our best to address them, but some folks are just tired, some folks are venting, and some folks are just kinda spacey. I’m not going to go too in-depth with this response because I am pretty sure I handled a question like this earlier in this blog’s history that you may want to read, but we do not have customer-service training (I do, as do some employees, from previous jobs, but others don’t), and we do not have managers, and so sometimes folks can kind of just get away with not doing much work without seeing any repurcussions. I will, however, bring up this letter to folks at the cafe and try to suggest ways in which we can be better about this.

All that said, it is helpful (for me) if you do order food to let me know if you’re in rush. I can make sure the kitchen knows and they will sometimes respond. I can make sure your drink is out on time and will be more mindful about time if you’ve told me that yours is limited. I’m sorry for your experiences and I hope you continue to come to Food for Thought!