Michigan Dining runs 31 kitchens across a large, geographically dispersed campus, supported by over 500 full-time staff and roughly 1,300 student employees. Steve Giardini joins Sojo Alex ahead of two new facility openings, one next year and a different kind of facility three years after that, to talk about what has to change in how campus dining spaces get designed.

Steve explains why flexibility, not square footage, is the priority: kitchen equipment and layouts that can move between cuisines and customization styles without requiring a remodel every time student preferences shift. He also speaks candidly about the labor challenge of staffing a new facility with 100 permanent positions, and how Michigan Dining is using automation and AI in back-of-house processes to free up staff time for guest-facing hospitality.

Key themes in this episode: facility design, flexibility, labor and automation.