For the past two weeks, students have been adjusting to Sage Hill’s most recent food service, FLIK. Student feedback has been mixed on quality, pricing and variety.

Some of FLIK’s praised features include the greater speed with which students are able to purchase food as well as the cafeteria’s improved spacing.

“Though the lines are a bit larger than past, the paying procedure goes much quicker,” junior Nathan Mirsky said.

According to FLIK manager, Barbara Stoner, the staff will continue to work towards ensuring this efficiency by labeling more items with bar codes.

“We’re going to be adding bar codes to a lot of our in-house-made products so everything can be scanned and we don’t have to look for anything on the screen,” Stoner said.

The staff aspires to take greater advantage of an outdoor grill to minimize crowding. As a further goal, Stoner hopes that an extra food cart can be acquired and utilized within the next year or so.

“[The grill] will help to bring kids out a little faster because they’ll pick up their hot meat [outside] for their salads and entrees rather than inside,” Stoner said.

Other favorable comments about FLIK are aimed at the food quality, nutritional value and portions, although there is a significant amount of dissent expressed in these areas as well.

“The food at FLIK has been higher quality than Sapphire. However, the prices have been similar with much smaller portions,” sophomore Jack Strohman said.

Part of the reason for inflated costs, Stoner explained, is the work that goes into food preparation. Other elements, such as ingredient, packaging and delivery expenses are also considered.

“Everything that we’re making is essentially from scratch,” she said.

Fortunately for students, price changes for particular items such as yogurts and refreshments will be made soon.

Additional criticisms of the company that have been made regard the availability of snacks and hot lunches, which a few students feel are low in stock.

Stoner attributed this problem to the unpredictable and sudden appearance of large swarms of people. As a solution, she intends to extend the staff’s abilities and employment as well as set guidelines regarding supply amounts which should be implemented during the next few weeks.

“We are doing everything we can to try and maximize the space that we have in order to bring in everything that we need to bring in,” Stoner said. “We are still looking to repurpose our current staff and bring in an additional person. We are doing what we can to maintain and also establish a daily amount that we need to have on everything.”

In terms of creating a wider food selection, Stoner said that more to-go type snacks will be integrated into FLIK’s options, with extra gluten-free as well as nut-free alternatives like cookies and granola bars.

However, because of general health consciousness and concerns with space, there is a limit to the number of junk foods that FLIK can offer.

“I have to be very aware of what I’m giving you guys and what I’m giving you access to,” Stoner said.

Nevertheless, Stoner is willing to do snack rotations if that is something students desire. Because student input is so valuable and informative, she urges students to submit any thoughts or recommendations about FLIK’s food, pricing or any other related topics to their email, [email protected], or the website, myschooldining.com, where students can share criticism anonymously.