Wednesday, Feb. 27, the Marketplace opened its doors at 4:30 p.m. to present Dining Services’ annual Food Show with its suppliers, John Gross & Company. Previous years’ themes have included pirates and superheroes, but this year, the focus was on all-new foods.

In the Marketplace, students sampled various dishes that hadn’t been offered on the menu before, including new salads, sandwiches and dumplings.

In the Marketplace, students sampled various dishes that hadn’t been offered on the menu before, including new salads, sandwiches and dumplings.

In the Blue Bean Cafe below, both familiar and unfamiliar deserts were laid out, including sticky buns and various other baked goods.

Once they were finished eating, students could take a slip of paper and vote on which of the new foods they wanted to add to Marketplace menus in the future.

Student reception to the food was positive.

Sophomore Gio Zapata was surprised at how good everything was.

“I wish they served food like this normally,” another sophomore, Danica Kline, agreed.

Options such as the salad, the new grilled cheeses and garlic knot sandwiches were approved by students. Many also liked the fresh-made pork and vegetable dumplings.

“I like how it brings new variety,” sophomore Makayla Hockenbrock said.

She and other students are disappointed by the limited choices usually presented in the Marketplace. “We just eat so much chicken.… I wouldn’t mind seeing some steak on the menu,” Hockenbrock joked.

Students additionally hope that the Marketplace will provide healthier foods in the future.

“Most of [the current food] is overly greasy,” Kline, who enjoyed the new salad options, explained.

“I know people who complain it upsets their stomach.” Sophomore Kaylee Kline, her sister, said, pointing out how difficult it can be for students with specific diets to eat at the Marketplace.

Because of their current dissatisfaction with the food, students are glad to be given the option of picking what they want to eat in the future, but some are wary about it.

“It would be nice to see [the college] actually make a change rather than discuss it so students stop asking,” Kaylee Kline said.

Danica Kline agreed, saying that although the management is “stuck in how they do things,” it would be nice for them to listen to student input.

Zapata pointed out that a “lack of communication” between students and the administration in the past has resulted in a “big divide” between them.

He hopes that this event will be one step towards making a system where “[the administration] is asking for input, not just assuming what we want.”