A crucial component of the village is the two-story, 44,000-square-foot Academic Village Commons. The first floor features The Ram's Horn Sports Grill and 200 seats for dining; The Ram's Horn Express, the only à la carte retail dining facility in the commons; storage areas; central mailboxes; and sunken lounges. The second floor includes The Ram's Horn dining facility, a 600-seat dining room, and a main kitchen. The dining operation primarily serves students with meal plans living in Academic Village, but is open to all students, faculty and staff who have meal plans or purchase an all-you-care-to-eat breakfast, lunch or dinner.

“Studies of collegiate communities in which they live, study, learn and dine together have shown that their grades improve when compared to those students who spend their time more on their own,” says Deon Lategan, director of Residential Dining Services at CSU. “We also know that students can tend to'cocoon' in their rooms and sit at their computers. We wanted to discourage students from that and encourage socialization.

“The residence halls constructed in the '50s and '60s each had their own dining halls,” Lategan continues. “When the Academic Village residence halls were planned to replace existing halls, we realized it made sense to consolidate dining facilities so we could offer more variety, which would attract more students.”

Eventually, The Ram's Horn will support six residence halls, though anyone on campus will still be able to eat in these facilities. The Academic Village is part of a campus-wide expansion to house a student population that CSU expects will grow by 5,000 during the next few years.

The entire budget for the design and building of Academic Village was $46 million. The Ram's Horn's portion of the total cost was $18 million. The foodservice equipment investment totaled $2.5 million.

“One of the first agreements among the team working on this project was to create a facility that didn't look institutional,” says interior designer Joanne McGillvray, principal, Ricca Newmark Design, Greenwood Village, Colo. “We wanted the foodservice to have a fresh, contemporary appeal similar to retail and restaurant environments. The use of commercial materials and furnishings signifies luxury and quality. These complement the high quality of food served. This facility merges function with experience. Students are far more sophisticated than ever and their expectations are based on what they see outside campus.”

“I challenged the architect and project team to create a facility that brings a 'wow!' response from students, faculty, visitors and staff entering the building,” CSU's Lategan says. One feature creating such a response is a waterfall that cascades over a two-and-a-half-story-high granite wall, which is part of a grand staircase that greets visitors to the commons building. On the ground level, the Sports Grill conveys a message of living a fun, active lifestyle. The athletic department provided memorabilia and designers purchased golf balls, kayaks and other sports paraphernalia to perk up the space. Four LCD televisions contribute to the entertainment and atmosphere.

In The Ram's Horn on the second level, exposed beams and angular edges emphasize the spaciousness of the rooms and ceiling heights, which rise up to 20 feet. Huge windows allow views of a ballpark and mountains in the surrounding areas. The use of metal, stone, quartz and glass on counterfronts and other surfaces brings a touch of elegance and durability to the marketplace. Sculptural elements, such as the flames lapping around the soffit at the Mongolian Grill, which were fabricated by a local metal worker, convey imagination and expansive thought. In the seating areas, various styles of upholstered chairs and banquettes and different configurations of tables offer customers a variety of choices.

“This was intended to be the benchmark of new facilities on campus,” McGillvray says.

Flexibility remained a key consideration throughout the design process. Each food venue has its own identify, but is not so extreme that it can't support new menu items that might be put in if food trends shift. Stations such as the Mongolian Grill can be multifunctional to serve as a breakfast station in the morning and offer more varied fare at lunch and dinner.

“The project was a little over budget initially, so we shrunk the footprint,” says Al Moller, studio principal, Ricca Newmark Design. “However, we maintained the flow in the servery so customers can move around easily between stations. We located stations so the venues with the greatest demand aren't in one area. For example, the deli is pulled to the back of the servery, away from the Mongolian Grill. In addition, there's enough storage near cooking areas so staff don't have to make extra trips to get food needed during peak service periods. We also provided enough space in the production kitchen to support the stations.”

When students wish to eat, they can enter the Sports Grill on the first level or walk upstairs to The Ram's Horn. Inside the Sports Grill, students can select food from a deli line offering cold sandwiches. Cooks sizzle burgers and chicken on a charbroiler and use a steam flat-top griddle with a dome covering for slider-style hamburgers and to finish off chicken breasts after grilling. A four-bank deep-fat fryer turns out french fries, crab cake sliders, chicken sandwich sliders and chicken strips.

The focal point in the lower-level Sports Grill is the gas-fired pizza oven with decorative tile work above. Cooks prepare three varieties of pizza daily.

A beverage station offers hot and cold drink choices. This beverage station, along with the two on the second level in The Ram's Horn, has a single 1,400-pound ice machine that transfers ice to two soda dispenser ice bins. The amount of ice in each bin is constantly monitored and the ice machine delivers ice to the bin that needs it most.

Adjacent to the Sports Grill is The Ram's Horn Express, the common's only retail operation. It features fruit smoothies, espresso coffee drinks, and a variety of grab 'n go sandwiches, salads, pizza, sushi and snacks, as well as convenience-store items. A hot-holding unit holds wrapped burgers and chicken strips, while a hot deck holds pizza slices.

Bulk storage on this level includes a walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer and dry storage. Staff take products up to the second floor daily through a service elevator.

On the second level, the Filling Station offers all types of sandwiches. One section, which contains two frost tops, produces wraps, while another delivers deli sandwiches to order. A fryer produces french fries and chicken sandwiches and cheese steaks. A conveyor oven heats french bread pizzas, hot meatball subs, pigs in a blanket and other sandwiches. Soup wells hold one scratch-made recipe, a commercially purchased soup and a hot dip, such as artichoke dip served with sliced baguettes.

A small beverage station with soda and juice sits nearby.

The adjacent Tex-Mex station contains a circular, rotating flat-top grill for making tortillas and quesadillas. A heated deck holds and displays pre-plated quesadillas and burritos.

“This station contains the only steam well-service in the building,” says Karl Bendix, executive chef of The Ram's Horn. The four-well unit holds beef and chicken for tacos, cilantro lime rice and refried and chili beans. Two hot decks hold tortilla chips and nachos. A deep fryer makes tortilla bowls for salads.

At the end of a counter sits a custom-designed rotating wheel, called a salsa susan. It holds six refrigerated containers filled with salsas, guacamole and sour cream.

Cooks prepare burgers in this area, as well as Mexican specialties. One grill with three hydraulic tops that lower to cook from top and bottom flattens a four-ounce ball of hamburger and cooks it in 35 seconds. “We offer burgers only two days a week, because we don't want to compete with the Sports Grill,” Bendix says. The equipment also cooks chicken breasts.

Across an aisle from Tex-Mex resides a bakery section displaying cut and plated desserts. One side contains refrigerated items such as puddings, fruit pies and cheesecake and the other holds room-temperature items such as brownies. All baked items are produced in the campus's central bakery. Also nearby, a farmer's market station contains fresh fruit and desserts. In addition, a soft-serve and bread and rolls section fills out the space in this area.

An adjacent cereal, condiment and beverage station provides many essentials for customers' meals. “Cereal spill drawers, made with removable pans placed under a grate built into the countertop, allow staff to easily clean this area,” says Lona Homersham, project director for Ricca Newmark. Beverages include coffee, hot chocolate, hot water for tea, and milk.

The Comfort Foods station sits across from the dessert and Tex-Mex stations. It contains three venues: pasta, carving and sauté. Cooks use a pasta cooker, steamer and induction cookers to prepare at least two pasta sautés daily. “Pasta is sautéed in small portions on induction cookers and served out of the same pan they cooked in, which conserves dishes and contributes to our sustainability efforts,” Lategan says.

A conveyor oven moves skillets with casseroles and oven-proof cookware containing lasagna through its heat-controlled interior. Garlic bread heats in here, as well. Items with cheese heat in the pass-through cheesemelter above.

The carving station allows staff to slice whole muscle meats such as turkey, roast beef and pork loin during lunch and dinner. Meat cooks in combi ovens in that venue. To the left of the carving station, three induction chafer dishes contain self-serve vegetables and starches. A cold case for garnishes sits nearby.

At the sauté station, induction cookers allow staff to make omelets and breakfast skillets with potatoes, onions and sausages that are finished in the conveyor oven. In addition, the conveyor produces individual meatloaf and lasagna.

Cooks turn to a charbroiler to sizzle chicken breasts, fish and steaks. The cooks use the griddle to make pancakes and the fryers for battered seafood items.

“Some customers don't want to stand in line and wait for the Mongolian-grilled item, so we give an alternative stir-fry of the day,” Lategan says. “Cooks use two high-powered gas-fired woks to produce small batches of stir-fried dishes. This takes pressure off the Mongolian grill line.”

A Nutrition Information kiosk sits adjacent to the Mongolian Grill. The kiosk allows students to access nutritional information about items served at The Ram's Horn, as well as other nutrition advice.

Adjacent to the Mongolian Grill on the other side is a double-sided triangular-shaped salad bar with mirror images on each side. On one side are salad and fruit ingredients displayed in refrigerated pans. On another side is Sizzling Salads, where cooks select items from two frost tops and use two induction cookers to prepare proteins for custom-ordered salads. Along another counter are breakfast items. A refrigerated display case sits in the middle of the salad station to minimize the number of steps staff must take to get ingredients.

A dish-drop conveyor sits near the exits so students can conveniently drop off their dishes. “We wanted an outboard dishroom that is not connected to the kitchen,” Moller says. “The kitchen is a chaotic place, so by separating the two, both work environments are more pleasant.”

The pot-wash area is in a separate location closer to the back-of-the-house production area, which is equipped with a high-pressure pot washer, a swirl sink and a pulper.

A main kitchen supplies food for stations on both floors. On one line, 40- and 60-gallon steam-jacketed kettles produce soups, stews, green chili, taco meat and other bulk items. One small, 20-quart tilting skillet makes pad Thai, crab Thai and other small-batch items. The larger, 40-gallon tilting skillet cooks scrambled eggs served in the Comfort Foods station.

Four combi ovens sit nearby. “These are our prize possessions,” Bendix says. “The versatility is unsurpassed.”

A flat-top griddle cooks french toast and pancakes, but when the dining facility opens for the fall term, Bendix says the staff may use the equipment to cook more than breakfast items. A convection steamer heats vegetables, while a three-gallon steam kettle heats small portions of gravies. A four-bank fryer produces hash brown patties, french fries and buffalo wings. Runners take many of these items to the Comfort Foods and Tex-Mex stations as needed, though each station has its own fryers.

A blast chiller sits across from the fryers. “This allows us to chill foods quickly and safely,” Bendix says.

Sustainability is very important to Lategan and the dining services staff. Students receive a polycarbonate bottle that they can fill with a beverage to take out without charge. Soda cups are made from biodegradable cornstarch. Customers can check out reusable containers that must be returned in five days without a charge. Recycling bins are accessible for coffee cups and to-go containers. These are ground up in the pulper. This allows staff to reduce the waste stream. A local compost farm receives the pulp.

The second pulper is located in the dishroom. “The pulper grinds up foods and disposable waste and is carried to the dock in a slurry,” Lategan says. “At the dock a centrifuge separates the solids from the liquid. The solids are deposited in a dumpster that goes to the compost farm. The water is recirculated, which will save 125,000 gallons of water a month, and the process starts over. We believe we will divert 70 percent of our waste from the landfill by using these pulpers. The beauty of this system is to take what is typically a by-product that would go to the landfill and turn it into a resource that goes to the compost farm.”

Starting this fall, all-you-care-to-eat facilities will feature trayless service, which Lategan expects will save about 195,000 gallons of water per month in addition to electricity to heat water to wash trays. Trayless will also reduce food waste.

Hoods throughout the operation contain variable-speed controls that help reduce energy demand when the equipment is not in full production. “We have 25 hoods in the building removing 64,000-cubic-feet per minute (cfms) when they are all running,” Lategan says. “To reduce the cfms, we installed sensors at each hood to ensure it runs at a lower speed when there is less demand detected by the optical sensors.” By reducing the cfms, less make-up air is conditioned.

The air conditioning system supplements the swamp cooler that is effective in the dry Colorado climate. The entire building is wind-power-generated.

The customer response to the new foodservice was overwhelmingly favorable during the summer, reports Lategan. At this writing, the returning and new students starting their fall semester will see this facility for the first time. No doubt a few adjustments will be necessary when the foodservice is in full operation. But there's no question the décor, equipment and food choices will surpass any expectations customers may have had of a college dining experience.