SUNY Brockport café wins national award

SUNY Brockport's Aerie Café has received the grand prize dining award from the National Association of College and University Food Service (NACUFS). The café, located in the Drake Memorial Library, received the Loyal E. Horton award during the annual NACUFS conference which was recently held in Las Vegas.

Anna Hintz, BASC marketing director at SUNY, said the purpose of the awards is to recognize outstanding menu cycles, presentations, special event planning and new dining concepts. Aerie Café's Manager Terry Baker and Assistant Manager Wendy Richards accepted the grand prize award.

The annual Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards Contest consists of six categories and entries are judged by a team of seven food service experts. The judging criteria is based on food merchandising and presentation, menu selection and marketing. Aerie Café won the gold award in the category of retail sales - single stand-alone concept/outlet for medium schools. The café then competed against the small and large schools in the same category.

Aerie Café, appropriately named by the former college president, Dr. Paul Yu, means "a highly placed eagle's nest," after the SUNY Brockport Golden Eagles. The café features gourmet coffees, teas, sandwiches, salads and desserts daily. The unique library location offers students a convenient place to grab a bite to eat while studying.

The café is operated by Brockport Auxiliary Service Corporation (BASC), which is responsible for the operation of services and enterprises supplemental to the educational mission of the college. This is the fourth award SUNY Brockport has received from NACUFS for its dining services. They have also won first place in the special event category, second place for resident hall standard menus and last year they won second place for the newly remodeled Union Square Food Court in the Seymour College Union. SUNY Brockport's dining services has also been rated number one in SUNY student opinion surveys since 1994.