Kerem Olgun

Students wait in the express line inside the student union. This line is known to move the quickest, as the check-out process is done at the end after the food is picked up. Fridays, known for the pizza, are usually the busiest days.

The Carlmont lunch staff works hard before and during lunchtime to ensure good service so students can enjoy their lunch break.

Lunch lines at Carlmont get crowded soon after the bell rings, and the staff has to prepare before the lunch rush. According to Food Service Lead Gail Horn, there are a lot of preparations that go into setting up before students arrive to pick up their food, and most of them begin before school starts.

Students don’t always think about what preparations are necessary because they’re only there for the food, according to Ashley Hamanaka, a sophomore at Carlmont.

“It’s really crowded and loud. I don’t think students consider the preparation that goes into setting up the lunch system because students just want to get their food and eat,” Hamanaka said.

The lunch lines operate with multiple checkout-style lines and an express line with checkout at the end. The lines start to fill up as soon as the lunch bell rings as students rush to get in line so they can get their food quickly. The quick checkout system and the preparation allow hundreds of students to get lunch from the cafeteria daily.

According to Horn, the staff has to arrive very early in the morning to set up for the food service later in the day.

“I come in at 6:30 a.m., start the line, put the warmers on, and put the food out. Students start coming around 7:30 a.m., and it goes until 8:30 a.m.,” Horn said. “We start around 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. for lunch. Sometimes we make rice for lunch or prepare food for later.”

Student volunteers help the lunch staff every day by assisting the students with the checkout and giving out the food. According to Alinando Lennemann, a junior at Carlmont who volunteers with food service, the lines move quickly and he makes sure people getting food are marked in the system.

“I just put out the food and press okay on the tablet. I don’t feel rushed,” Lennemann said.

The lunch staff tries to serve the food to students as quickly as possible because there is limited time to eat lunch. 

“There’s so many kids, and you want to serve them so they can enjoy their lunch period,” Horn said.

Many students use the lunch lines to get their food every day. Most of them don’t have a chance to consider what goes into setting up for lunch and how the staff serves it, according to Carlmont sophomore Jonathan Mathew.

“It is a little rushed, but because they’re trying to get to hundreds of students, it’s understandable how it can be a hand-off and go type of thing,” Mathew said.

According to Horn, in the ten years she has worked at Carlmont, the lunch lines and the lunch system have changed a lot. 

“We took money before. We don’t take money anymore. It’s a faster transaction, and there’s more students than before,” Horn said.

Students and staff think the lunch lines could be less chaotic and more efficient so that the service could go by quickly.

“If they had more lines, it would be much quicker. Some food choices run out before everyone gets lunch,” Mathew said.

Although the lines can be chaotic and challenging to manage, the students and staff continue to work around the complications and prepare for the rush to ensure good service.

“Every once in a while, there can be groups of kids that make it chaotic. It’s not orderly, but it’s good enough,” Lennemann said.