With an Italian flair decorating the BYU–Hawaii cafeteria and Italian music in the background, different flavors of pizzas were served during the Club Dining’s Pizza Extravaganza event on May 22.
Pizza is usually on the dinner menu on Wednesday’s in the cafeteria. Based off this schedule, Food Services decided to make last “Pizza Wednesday” a larger event, exciting students with more options for pizza and Italian food, according to the Food Service staff.
Club Dining Supervisor Wendy Lau, said, “We want all our students and guests tonight to have a cultural experience of a pizzeria from Italy. Food Services loves to serve the students [and] to feed them delicious food that looks and tastes good. Something that they can enjoy.”
Four kinds of pizzas were served: garden, spinach chicken alfredo, Hawaiian ham and pineapple, and pepperoni. All the ingredients were showcased at the counter while the pizzas were freshly made in front of the customers.
Heeji Mun, a social and marketing specialist for the Food Services and a sophomore from Korea studying graphic design, said, “We want to give the freshness to others. It’s not frozen pizza that we’re making.”
The national flag of Italy was placed around the food serving area. The cooks dressed up in chef whites, including the trademark tall white hats. While they walked around serving food, romantic Italian and folk music played in the background.
“When I saw the workers dressed as Italian chefs with the hats, I was thinking, ‘Wow! You look great,’” shared Sarai Kennerley, a junior from New Zealand studying math.
During peak hours, every new pizza fresh from the oven was immediately consumed by the long line of students.
Kennerley said, “It’s always a cool thing to do [a pizza night.] Everyone likes pizza.”
E He, a freshman from China studying computer science, said, “Seeing all these pizzas [is] the best. I’m very excited.”
Having grown up in China, He said he did not like eating pizza until he served his mission in California. “I couldn’t eat the pizzas in China. The taste was bad. I started the habit of eating pizza in my mission. It’s delicious and convenient.”
Besides serving pizzas, Italian pasta salads were offered at the salad bar along with Italian chocolate cakes at the dessert section. Italian baked chicken pasta was a favorite among students.
Astonished by the grilled texture of the chicken, Forrest Hauck, a freshman from New Zealand studying finance, said, “I can feel those are not canned chickens but [fresh].”
Hauck also said it was satisfying to have various Italian food instead of only pizzas.
Having experienced other Club Dining’s specials with Polynesian and Asian themes such as Chinese New Year, Mark Drasbek, a freshman from Virginia studying business management, said it was good to see the cafeteria start trying something more European.