On January 27, the Zorn Dining Commons (DC) had its first inspection since 2023. The 2025 inspection placed the DC at a score of 69 out of 100, a significant drop from the 80 out of 100 it scored on the inspection from over a year prior.
The team behind the DC and the company of Chartwells have put forward motions in place to try to remedy the issues highlighted in the inspection.
Jen Ferrell, the associate vice president for student engagement who had previously provided her input to The Equinox about the 2025 inspection, shared how some of the issues pointed out in the inspection have been fixed in the last few weeks.
“The majority of the items from the inspection were able to be remedied immediately,” Ferrell said. “They were small-scale things, a missing lid or cutting boards that weren’t in great shape. All of the small-scale things that could be immediately fixed have been so already, some of them on the same day as the inspection.”
“The dish machine, at the time, did not temp quite high enough,” Ferrell went on. “Later in the day, though, it temped just fine. Since then they’ve been doing two temps each day, one in the morning and one in the evening. It’s temped just fine since then and they had the actual machine company come in, who tested everything. They also had our facilities team go in and test everything and look at the steam coming in, as our campus provides the steam that heats the dish machine. So the facilities team also found that it was fine.”
Ferrell explained why there is not going to be an official follow-up inspection to the one from January or an updated score.
“The inspector is able to come back and review and make sure that folks are making progress on things,” Ferrell said. “If he did, he would see that they are. There will not be another inspection, even with all of those things remedied and taken care of, as they don’t do an updated score.”
Patrick Friley, the resident district manager for Chartwells, provided additional insight in a follow-up interview about the upcoming plans regarding the dining commons.
“We have developed a rigid action plan,” Friley said. “We’ve looked at the school and we’ve worked to fix the violations from the inspection. We’ve also re-trained our staff.”
Friley went on to explain that the inspector did end up returning to re-review the work that had been done.
“The health inspector did come back this last Saturday [February 15],” Friley went on. “And they found no violations.”
Bobbie Walker, the regional director of operations at Chartwells, elaborated on the work that has been done to fix the violations highlighted in the health inspection.
“We’ve monitored the dishwasher daily,” Walker said. “Food safety is our number one priority and we work to make sure that our food is served correctly and safely.”
In the previous inspection, the dishwasher not temping correctly was one of the concerns highlighted by the inspector.
Both Friley and Walker explained how health concerns regarding gluten-free options at the dining commons and specific student allergies are being addressed.
“I have met with a number of students in the last couple of weeks,” Friley said. “We talked about their specific health concerns and how to figure them out.”
Friley added that there are specific food items that the dining commons avoids using.
“We do not cook with any nuts in Zorn,” Friley said. “And that includes tree nuts. All our managers are also certified as allergy experts.”
Walker would provide some different ways that students can reach out to the Chartwells staff if they are having issues getting accommodations or have any concerns.
“If students don’t want to talk to staff directly, we have our DineOnCampus website,” Walker said. “We also have a phone number that students can text and reach out to.”
Chloe Erno can be contacted at
cerno@kscequinox.com
