The Grill Guys hard at work in FoCo. Photograph by Liz Klinger.

Eating at Dartmouth is unlike eating in at a restaurant or at a dinner table. Most of us don’t think of a late-night trip to FoCo as a chance to enlighten our taste buds, and it is certainly not the kind of place where you wait for your friends to sit down before you dig in.

We get so wrapped up in our to-go wraps, our “facetime” and our frenzied hunter-gatherer instincts that we don’t stop to appreciate the hands that are feeding us. If you haven’t noticed the interesting people who work for DDS, then you are a victim of this hunger-induced blindness.

To find out more about the ways we interact with DDS employees, I waited for a lull at FoCo when there wouldn’t be any lines. I met many recognizable faces for the first time and shook their hands across the counter.

DFP: I think for a lot of people at Dartmouth, getting food is more of an expectation than a privilege. What do you think is the best thing people can do to connect on a more personal level with the servers and improve their dining experience?

Hippie: To me, the most important thing in our interaction with the students is good manners. “Please” and “thank you” are like the grease on the wheels of communication, and we really appreciate that.

Kevin: The “please” and “thank you’s” are nice, especially for the older guys on the grill. Being the oldest guy on the grill, and having at least one child almost your age, saying please and thank you really helps. I don’t demand it, but in some ways I still expect it.

DFP: What time of day do you find your job to be most enjoyable?”

Kevin: Things are usually easy going anytime before late at night. Around a quarter to one or twelve thirty is the worst time. Sometimes you’ll have customers who are belligerent for one of a number of reasons, usually alcohol-related. You’re all around 20 years old… We were all there once.

Eric: One night at around 11:30 we had a long line of people all chanting, “We want Mozz Sticks! We want Mozz Sticks!” because we had temporarily run out of them.

DFP: What do you guys do to deal with that? Do you just take a cigarette break? Or do you try to intervene?

Kevin: You know, I let it roll off. But a lot of times I will say, “What’s the magic word?” You know, just like I would do with my kids. We enjoy having a little fun just to interact with the students. Sometimes I say, “Cluck like a chicken.” Some people will flap their arms and go “bck bck bck,” and some of them just go, “Give me my steak.” I wouldn’t make them cluck like a chicken, you know? At the same time, maybe next time that dude comes around, I’ll do something a little better for him.

DFP: Are they any circumstances where you don’t have to serve someone?

Kevin: In some cases if the person is being really belligerent, we won’t serve them food, and we’ll probably just call one of the managers.

DFP: If people do share casual banter and have good manners, does it really make a difference?

Eric: Yeah, if a guy is cool, we might put a little more pizaz on his cheese steak. Or if he orders the same thing every day and he’s nice, I might get his food to him a little earlier. I might see him at the end of the line, and he’ll just put up one or two fingers, and I know he wants a grilled chicken so I throw it on the grill right away.

So next time you’re awkwardly standing in line at the Hop or FoCo with nothing to say to the people next to you, try throwing a comment across the counter to one of the cooks. This could be a simple “top of the morning,” a commentary on something happening behind the counter (“I saw what shape you made that fried egg, heh”), or if the line isn’t too long, it could even be a brainstorm of some outlandish and exotic dish—don’t be mistaken, they love making something different.

Whatever way you choose interact with the DDS employees, it will pay off, whether that means not eating an egg that was once in the shape of a phallus, getting your food earlier, or getting your cheese a little more melty.

And bring back the trays at the Hop (I wonder who it could be, AD pledges?)! We already have enough to juggle in our lives.