Increased demand for cafeteria lunch eats up this year’s shorter lunch time.

Since the start of the 2023-24 school year, the cafeteria line has been noticeably longer than last year. Often at the beginning of the school year, the lunch line has been really long for the first couple weeks, but calms down once people get in the flow of the new year. This year, however, the lunch line doesn’t seem to be getting much shorter, sometimes taking up half the 300 Hall. This has been a problem for students because it takes a long time to get food, leaving little time to actually eat and have a break.

“Sometimes I just won’t eat lunch because I get there and the lunch line is like 25 minutes and lunch is 30 minutes,” South sophomore Lexi Gregory said. “[And] most of my friends just don’t eat lunch now because the lunch line is too long.”

With this year’s new schedule, lunch is even shorter than before. Last year’s schedule gave students a 35 minute lunch, with five minute passing periods on each side. This year, lunch is 30 minutes with five minute passing periods surrounding it. Though five minutes may seem like an

insignificant difference, that change, combined with other factors, has added stress to the lunch period. Since lunch is a much-needed break for most students, everyone wants that downtime, which can be hard to get when it takes so long to get food. “I hate that the lunches are shorter. I feel like I don’t have enough time to relax and hang out with my friends,” sophomore Elliot Walter said.

Many students feel rushed after getting food from the cafeteria or when going off-campus. “I go to the cafeteria sometimes, but then I have, like, 10 minutes to eat my lunch,” Gregory said. “And I go off campus sometimes but I have like five minutes by the time they make my food, and then I have to walk back so I just don’t have time. I just don’t really eat a meal unless I bring it from home, which I never have time to [do].”

It’s very important for students’ learning and overall health to eat plenty of food throughout the day because it provides nutrients which keep energy levels up. The new shorter lunches combined with the
longer line discourages some students from eating lunch.

Now that the lunch line has become a huge clump in the middle of the hallway, it can be stressful to get hot lunch. Mike Burnett, South Eugene’s kitchen coordinator, makes sure that the cafeteria has everything it needs to feed everyone and supervises all kitchen operations. “There’s really not a lot I can do because we only have one lunch service and [it’s] only 30 mins,” Burnett said when asked about the line. “I know that the line out in the hallway is obnoxious, but there’s very few things we can do. I wish kids wouldn’t block the hallway.”

In response to the shortened lunch periods, Burnett and the rest of the cafeteria staff have started serving Life Skill students with special needs at 11:30, then opening up the serving area to everyone immediately after. According to Burnett, there’s about a ten percent increase in students who get cafeteria food this year compared to last year. “I feel like quality of service is better this year than it was and that’s why we have more students participating in our lunch program this year,” Burnett says. “Last year we had one long line and we would put out all the lunches before anyone showed up. I hated that. It destroyed our food quality, it made the stuff that should be hot be cold by the time you guys got ahold of it. And so this year we serve out of the lines [and] make sure that the food stays warm until you guys get it.” Last year, students could make it through the line and get their food more quickly, however, there would be a big hold-up getting out of the line. This year, that hold-up is in the hall before getting food. This is because getting food takes longer, since the cafeteria staff now serves each student individually, instead of students just grabbing their own lunches. One of the main reasons for this change is to avoid the bottleneck near the registers which formed last year after students got their food. At that time, Burnett and the other cafeteria staff had to manage all the students stuck there and make sure they weren’t taking extra food or doing anything else.

“Not having everybody stuck in the middle makes it where I’m not babysitting,” Burnett said. “That’s why I moved the checkout from out there to in here last year– because of all the shenanigans that were going on in here, I had to put a stop to it.” However, the bottleneck in the hallway is more crowded and aggressive than the one by the registers last year. There’s pushing and shoving, as well as many students crossing through the back hallway and 300 hallway who aren’t getting lunch. “It makes me very anxious to go in [the line],” Walter explained. Though the food is warmer and there’s no traffic jam by the registers, other problems have arisen. Burnett and the rest of the cafeteria staff are working to prevent these issues by getting kids through the line faster. “I’m getting another staff member so that I can have him on the register ‘cause if I won’t be stuck on the register, I can come down here and help expedite things [in the serving area]. I think that will speed up how quickly the line goes though,” Burnett said.
“[But] I wish we had more capacity in our serving area.”

When students were asked to time themselves getting lunch from the second period ending bell to when they sat down to eat, the average time for getting food in the cafeteria was 12 minutes. And in a 30 minute lunch with two five minute passing periods, there’s not enough time to unwind, study or do anything else students need to do. A five minute difference bell-to-bell may not seem like much, but because students have to get their food, check in with friends, and often figure out where they’re going, those five minutes make a huge difference. A few students were also asked to time themselves getting lunch off-campus from the Period 2 ending bell to sitting down with their food and starting to walk back. The average time to get lunch and sit down was 2 minutes with five minutes to eat and hang out. Then, these students would walk back around 12:10, with 10 minutes remaining before class started. Bringing lunch from home would be a good solution for maximizing lunch time, but many students don’t have time to bring lunch or forget to.

These shortened lunches can also be a problem for teachers who need time to eat, prep for class and get other work done. Some teachers come in early, stay late, or both; if lunch was longer they could use that extra time for the work they do before and after school. Brad Jungert teaches AP U.S. History at South. In Jungert’s case, he has plenty of time for prep, but misses student interactions at lunch. Jungert now doesn’t have time for kids to come in for make-up work and tests during the lunch period.

“I have time to prep; that’s not the issue,” Jungert said. “The issue is I don’t get to see you guys enough.”
These new changes with lunch are a big adjustment for the entire South com-
munity. Some ways for students to avoid the crowded lunch line include bringing lunch from home or getting hot lunch 10 or 15 minutes after lunch has started, once the line is gone. As for the shorter lunches, students are having to make the best of the limited time they have, often by planning what they’re doing beforehand. The lunch changes aren’t all bad though – quality of food in the cafeteria has improved, and the cafeteria staff are getting new resources to get students through the line faster. Once
South students get used to these changes, it will get easier to maximize lunch time and relax between classes.

Article by Maya Robershaw