University Catering
- What is the history of your company?
In 1998, the Fawcett Center Conference Center opened a coffee cart in the Fisher College of Business to provide light breakfast and lunch options. The convenient grab-and-go concept was very popular and four additional coffee carts were opened across Ohio State’s campus. The concept was named “Oxley’s On The Go.” In 2001, the base of operations moved from the Fawcett Conference Center to the Department of Campus Dining Services in Raney Commons. Oxley’s On The Go began to offer catered boxed lunches as an additional service to the cart concept. Business began to increase each subsequent year and Oxley’s On The Go grew to become a full service catering division in 2005. To reflect the new growth and expanded services, the name was changed to University Catering. In 2009 alone, the University Catering team served 267,277 guests – an average of 732 guests per day, 365 days of the year.
- What are your company’s strengths?
- University Catering’s greatest strength is the professional TEAM we have built – a combination of Campus Dining veterans and a few newly hired professionals.
- Our Event Planners are the creative, knowledgeable, experienced and detail oriented visionaries of the team. Together they have over 100 years of combined hospitality experience.They personally work with each client to create and produce well executed events based on the client’s requirements.
- Our Culinary Team produces the extensive variety of menu items we serve including breakfast, lunch, snacks, appetizers and dinner. They are one of the strongest and most experienced teams in the city due in part from the many years they spent working in fine dining restaurants, hotels and private catering companies.
- Our Banquet Managers are the organized, friendly & professional leaders of the team. They are the glue that holds University Catering together.They make sure we have the myriad of components needed for each event and produce the events according to the event planner’s vision.
- Our Students – Over 100 of them – are the faces of our company. They are caring & friendly and the hardest working members of the team. Many are working their way through school, while continually striving to improve the service at our events. They also help significantly lower the average age of our management team!
- What is your chef’s favorite dish on the menu and why?
That depends on which chef you ask – their palettes are very different. However, for the past year we have expanded our culinary repertoire and are serving some of the hottest international foods in entrée and bite size portions from Spain, Morocco, Italy, Greece, Mexico, South America and Eastern Europe. The new menu items are causing quite a buzz at our events and allow our chefs to spread their culinary wings beyond our standard catering menu. One of our chefs recently completed ten weeks of vegetarian menu item testing for a new Campus Dining concept – who knew tofu could taste like sea bass? Many items will be available on our new menu due to be completed this summer.
One common thread that runs among all University Catering Chefs – from our Executive Chef down to our Student Cooks – is the desire to purchase as much locally grown and raised produce, dairy and meat as possible. We always strive to buy meat, poultry and fish from sustainable and humane farms and suppliers. Many of our clients might not know that OSU’s main campus is home to: Waterman Farms – a working produce farm; The Food Industries Center – a processed food lab; the Brewster Dairy Plant; and a Meat Technology & Processing Plant. Ohio State culinary fans can also visit the Bee Lab on OSU’s Wooster Campus. All OSU facilities offer a variety of products seasonally and some year-round.
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