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The new and improved Shoreline provides a lunch alternative to many students
By: Lennon Seefeld & Kaela Laurin
The Shoreline has been open for many years, but more recently with the addition of new snacks and fun drinks, it has become even more popular among the student body. The Shoreline is the little snack bar adjacent to the lunch line exit, and is next to the school store. It currently serves a multitude of things: boba, smoothies, hot lunch, cookies, chips, and more.
Currently, the Shoreline isn’t open all 5 days of the week. The Director of Food and Nutrition for the Dexter Community Schools district, Jennifer Mattison, shared the struggles they’ve been facing. COVID had shut down the schools a couple of years ago after the Shoreline had already been open for a while,
“I’m gonna say it was probably seven years ago, maybe, and so we opened it for a while, and then the pandemic hit,” Mattison shared. She continues saying, “Then staffing became an issue. So then as we started to reopen, we still struggled to get enough people to work which is why it’s only open a few days a week right now.”
Even though they’ve struggled with issues to staff the Shoreline, there has been no shortage of interest from students. In a poll sent out to DHS students, students had the option to choose what they get most from the snack bar. The poll included smoothies, boba, cookies, small meals, and packaged snacks. Smoothies were the most popular with 23.9% of students saying that they get that from the snack bar. The newer items are what seems to be more popular among students. These ideas come from the nutrition staff. Mattison explained her own process for coming up with new ideas.
“So what we’re doing is we’re trying to find […] ideas from other restaurants in the area and trying to incorporate them,” Mattison said. However, just adding things to the menu is not that simple. “But the process that we have to go [through] is to make sure that it meets all the requirements that we have to adhere to for the USDA. The USDA has certain guidelines for the National School Lunch Program.” These requirements include things like sodium, calories, and saturated fat, as well as making sure they add to make a well-rounded meal as defined by the USDA. Additionally, requirements for snacks like the boba tea and chips that the Shoreline provides have different regulations it has to follow.
In another poll completed by DHS students, 12.7% of students said they get their lunch from the Shoreline rather than the larger lunch line. Another 12% who said they bring their lunch from home, said they also use the Shoreline. DHS junior, Audrey Benson, is a frequent visitor of the shoreline snack bar. Audrey said she uses the shoreline everyday that it’s open. When asked her favorite thing to get Audrey said this,
“I always get the smoothies but I am also definitely addicted to the cookies. They put something in there, I don’t even know.” Audrey also explained how welcomed she feels by the staff running the shoreline saying,
“The workers are really nice, I feel so loved. So appreciated.” Besides the wonderful staff who run the snack bar Audrey also said she enjoys being able to use the smoothie as her meal for the day.
“So I can also bring my own food but still get a free smoothie that is awesome.” She explained. In the future Audrey says she’d like to see brownies added to the shoreline menu.
As for the future of the Shoreline, Mattison says she has a few goals in mind.
“I want to make sure that we can try to mimic popular items that are out in other coffee shops so that we can offer that here to our students during the school day,” she said. Besides working on adding more options for students, Mattison wants to make sure those options are healthy, “which means that we’re consuming less sugar and in a healthier version…” Furthermore, Mattison hopes to get over the staffing issue so that the Shoreline is available for students every day of the week for breakfast and lunch. Finally, she hopes to bring more local fruits and vegetables into the school lunch program.
Overall, the Shoreline has been a great opportunity for students to have more options in their school dining experiences. The Shoreline is something that is not seen very often in other schools. The work and thought put into it by Mattison and the rest of the staff is reflected in the student body, and how much they use this unique addition to the lunch room.
