By Khalida Sarwari
Lunch period is about to get a lot more exciting at Saratoga High School. This fall, students could be lining up for a lot more than pizza and burgers. Those craving Thai or Indian food could have those cravings indulged if an initiative to bring restaurant food to the campus gets the green light.
There’s a restaurant partnership pilot program underway that aims to bring some of the places students go off campus for lunch directly to the cafeteria so that they can spend more time eating and enjoying their break instead of rushing to an off-site restaurant, risking a speeding ticket or being late for class.
“As a Saratoga High parent, I have noticed that our students from Saratoga High are naturally inclined to drive somewhere else instead of walking over to downtown Saratoga for their lunch,” said Rishi Kumar, a city councilman who is spearheading the initiative. “Driving in a rush is not only unsafe, but our students are also unable to help with Saratoga restaurants’ revenue.”
To address this issue, Kumar brought forth an idea to the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce and the Saratoga High School Food Ser- vice, which is contracted by the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District, to offer food from Saratoga restaurants on campus during Saratoga High’s lunch period, giving students who opt to go off campus for lunch a few extra options.
When Kumar brought forth the idea to him, Greg Medici said he and the district staff were happy to entertain it.
“The biggest thing is, we are always excited to make sure we give the best product we can to our kids, and we know the community has the same goal,” said Medici, an assistant superintendent chief business official. “I think on many, many levels this can be a real fun win- win for everyone. We’ll see where it goes.”
Though the details have yet to be ironed out, here’s roughly how the program will work, according to Medici: Vendors will set up shop inside the Saratoga High cafeteria on a rotating basis and will sell their food directly to students. The restaurants will be charged a nominal participation fee to offset the loss in revenue for the Saratoga Food Service, which provides most of the food that’s sold on campus.
The goal, said Medici, is to enhance the school’s existing a la carte offerings and offer students more variety at lunchtime, or as he said, “We can make a fantastic lasagna, but if there’s a restaurant that makes a fantastic lasagna, then that’s what we’re looking for.”
For restaurant owners, he added, one benefit to participating in the program is that it gives them an opportunity to promote their restaurant.
“One of the key elements is getting exposure, having their food exposed to as many palates as possible,” he said.
So far, three restaurants have committed to participating in the program, Medici said. His goal is to get about 10 restaurants to sign up, but his general approach is “the more, the merrier.”
“We’d love to have as many restaurants as inter- ested,” he said. “In a perfect world, we’d love to have at least 10 so we could rotate through a two-week period. If we have two or three, we might do it once a week.”
Though they won’t be benefiting from the program since they’re graduating in June, seniors Camille Bismonte and Oksana Trisonova said they’re all for it.
“I think it’s a really great way to make up for the amount of lunchtime lost with the new schedule,” said Bismonte, 18, whose job as a cashier in the cafeteria on Mondays and Fri- days permits her to go off campus only occasionally. “With the schedule next year, I think it’ll be harder” to go off campus.
The open-campus lunch policy, which allows students to leave campus during lunch period, is available only to juniors and seniors at Saratoga High. When she does have time to leave campus, Bismonte said it’s usually to 85 Degree Bakery, Saratoga Bagels or the Safeway in the Argonaut Shopping Center, which takes her about seven minutes. She said she avoids downtown because parking tends to be “a hassle.”
By the time she gets back to campus, she has three to five minutes to eat her food. Depending on her teacher’s classroom food policy, she’ll sometimes eat her meal at her desk. Bismonte said she’d like to see better panini, pasta, pizza and spicy food options on campus.
Because she doesn’t have a car, Trisonova also tends to stay put most days. When she does leave, it’s typically to somewhere in downtown, which is a 15- to 20-minute walk, she said. While parking isn’t an issue for her, she said she finds most of the restaurants expensive. She said she tends to stick to more affordable places such as Starbucks and Bell Tower Bistro.
While she’s generally satisfied with the cafeteria food, she said she feels it lacks variety.
“I would like to see Popeye’s chicken, honestly, and perhaps Smashburger, definitely,” she said.
The new initiative, Trisonova said, would encourage students to spend more time on campus, therefore reducing their risk of being late to class and getting speeding tickets. It would also help those students who don’t have a car not to feel left out, she said.
“And, I think this would be a creative way to bring businesses to campus,” she added.
The program is scheduled to launch in September. According to Medici, the school and district have attempted some form of a partnership with third- party food vendors in the past, as recently as in the last five to 10 years. The difference between those versions and this most recent program is that the latter offers food that would be prepared on-site rather than bringing prepared meals to the campus.
Restaurant owners who are interested in offering their food for sale at Saratoga High School are invited to attend an informational session at the Saratoga High School cafeteria on June 6 and 7 from 4 to 4:30 p.m. The meeting will be led by the high school district business office and Saratoga Food Service management.
For more information, contact Medici at gmedici @ lgsuhsd.org or 408.354.2520.
