By Julianna Parker
The University of Oklahoma's Housing and Food Services realized they had an image problem.
Every year on customer satisfaction surveys, Food Services would get great ratings on everything except for health.
That freshman 15 just kept coming.
Housing and Food Services will open The Laughing Tomato Aug. 18 to serve healthy alternatives in the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
The restaurant will serve pre-made dishes that focus on being healthy, using local products with no added hormones and providing vegetarian and vegan foods. It will take the place of Taco Mayo in the food court, next to Quiznos, Wong Key, Chick-Fil-A and Sbarro, and be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Housing and Food services decided to launch the restaurant to provide the healthy food options students wanted. They had tried other means to get students to eat better. Housing and Food Services has been providing healthy options at its restaurants for years and is completely trans-fat free.
Last year H--FS launched a marketing campaign to let people know about the healthy eating options on campus.
But to no avail. At the end of the year, the surveys showed that students still didn't think OU's food services were healthy.
"It really made very little impact," said Kevin Barker, director of retail operations for Housing and Food Services. He said he blames the easy availability of unhealthier food on campus. Customers focus on those foods and don't notice the healthier options, like at Couch Cafeteria, he said.
"You can eat so healthy there," he said of the cafeteria. "We have a huge salad bar, but it's right next to a huge sweet bar."
And sometimes salads aren't as exciting as fried foods. For example, Cate A La Carte has healthy wraps available, in addition to hot foods. But Barker said the items that are consistently the best sellers are macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy and chicken strips.
So this restaurant will be different. Everything will be a healthy choice.
"We wanted to take away where they have to figure out what's healthy," Barker said.
The Laughing Tomato will serve nutritious soups, salads, wraps and tomato dishes with locally grown tomatoes.
The dishes are all new to Housing and Food Services, and some are a bit original. One that T.J. Carter, manager of Laughing Tomato, said will probably be the best seller is called "Best Date Ever." It's a wrap with peanut butter, honey, dates and banana.
That's the item that Ryan Trevino said was his favorite.
"That was outstanding; It was by far my favorite dish," he said.
As information technology representative for Student Affairs, he got to attend a taste testing of The Laughing Tomato dishes in early May. Other memorable dishes included roasted edamame, tabouli and hummus.
Trevino said all the food he tried was great, and he plans to eat at The Laughing Tomato when it opens.
"I think it's a great complement and alternative to what they have in the Union," he said.
Another focus of the restaurant will be on providing ready-made food so students won't have to wait in long lines. Lines at Quiznos in the food court can last for 30 minutes or more during the lunch rush. The only other take-and-go restaurant in the Union is Chick-Fil-A.
"The lines get so long in this building," Carter said. "... Hopefully that will reduce some of the wait."
In addition to being good for the body, the restaurant also will try to be good for the environment. The food purchased will use sustainable practices and the containers will be made with compostable materials.
With all the attention placed on eating healthy, organic and natural these days, it just made sense to start The Laughing Tomato, officials said.
"It took longer to come up with the name," than the idea for the restaurant, Barker said.
Originally Barker was going to do a naming contest, like Housing and Food Services has done in the past. But the H--FS staff has learned that that's not always a good idea.
For the restaurant at the National Weather Center, a naming contest ended up naming it The Flying Cow, a reference to the movie "Twister." That is a good name, Barker said, but the runner-up for the contest was Moist Tongue, and no one would want to eat there.
They were looking at a Will Rogers quote, "An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh," Barker said. And H--FS employee Chris Kaeser responded: "But tomatoes make you laugh."
Julianna Parker 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com
