Students at KSC know the inside of the Zorn Dining Commons (DC) to be the place they can always go to fill their stomachs with hot food. However, this past week the staff of the DC brought the food they typically dish out inside to the outside of Appian Way for a free communal dinner available to anyone who stopped by campus.
The free event featured a buffet complete with spaghetti and meatballs, grilled chicken and made-from-scratch garlic bread. A seven-flavor gelato bar and strolling cannoli makers satisfied guests’ sweet tooths while an electric accordion player and walking magician provided entertainment to level up the event to dinner and a show.
“It’s been a while since we did an event like this,” Kala Clark, marketing manager of the DC, said. “The college used to do some version of this event annually pre-COVID. It was always right before the Student Involvement fair.”
“We just wanted a big community event open to all students, a way to get out family-style and talk to each other and make new friends,” Clark shared. “You know, do all those freshman milestones and have everybody just have fun together.”
Executive chef of the DC Austin O’Hara explained what it was like to design the menu for the event.
“We knew this was a popular event in the past, doing a pasta-feed on campus,” O’Hara said, “So we wanted to bring that back and kind of bring that light to campus. We had lots of fun ideas from doing a little gelato pop-up to having fun making an artisan garlic bread and having people walk around with the little cannolis, which is super trendy right now.”
When asked if there were any challenges in planning the event, O’Hara said, “I think every event’s gonna have its challenges. Wind was a big one–we had to rearrange the whole set-up.”
“There was a giant lemon that was supposed to come out for the lemonade stand, but the wind just wanted it to set sail,” Clark chimed in. “So we had to move things around a little last minute, but I think overall it still worked out. We have the photobooth not blowing away and we still have lemonade, so.”
In regard to upcoming events the DC will be hosting this semester, Clark said there will not be any more outdoor events, “but we do have some fun things planned for the Fall. We have a spooky supper club, and that’s a ticketed themed event within the dining hall. And then we do other themed events based on seasons or trends, we try to mix it up a little bit.”
Junior Gemma Pearce shared why they came out to the free dinner. “I was told by one of my teachers this morning that this was happening, and I got really excited,” Pearce said. “It’s not really often that I get to be involved in community events like this. I’m an off-campus student, I don’t have a meal plan, and a lot of times events like this are during the day when I have class or work or stuff like that, so it’s really fun to come out and get to have some free food that I don’t have to cook and spend some time with people.”
“It’s a really cool atmosphere; I like the accordion player,” Pearce continued. “I’m having a great time.”
“I came out mostly because I was hungry, but also I wanted to get outside since it’s really nice today,” Pearce’s tablemate, senior Chloe Griggs, said. “I like pasta and I thought it could be a good opportunity to make friends.”
First-year Levi Sicely was scooping strings of hot pasta onto his plate when he shared why he came to the event.
“I came here cause I was really hungry after my class and I wanted to see my friends,” Sicely said.
When asked if there was anything in particular he liked about the event, Sicely said, “I really like the person walking around in the blow-up chef costume. The environment is great.”
While an outdoor spaghetti fest may not be a weekly thing, students can still visit the Dining Commons any day throughout the week to meet their stomachs’ needs.
Serena Taylor can be contacted at
staylor@kscequinox.com
