By Christian Tao Each day, 8,000 to 10,000 people go through the Coffee House, consuming more than 80 pounds of coffee and 2,500 cookies. Yet Coffee House Director Sharon Waldman manages to make it look like a piece of cake. With four full-time career employees and 250 part-time student employees, this 15-year Coffee House veteran manages to keep students, faculty and staff on the move through breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's not an easy job, but Waldman has had a lot of practice. When she first took over as the Coffee House's food service manager in 1983, the restaurant was still nestled in a small corner of east Memorial Union. Today, she directs a food operation that occupies the entire west wing of the first floor of the Memorial Union. Although expanding has allowed the Coffee House to offer more variety and quantity of food, it hasn't been without growing pains. With only three managers, it's hard to cover the three main sections that are busy during lunch hours, Waldman says. It's a challenge that she, a self-described perfectionist, has had to learn to handle. "I accept the fact that there's going to be a cup on the floor, there's going to be a few drinks left on the counter and tables aren't going to be as clean as they could be. But then I sit back and realize how much food we're producing, how much we're selling, how many customers we're serving, and the need that we're meeting there. I get a lot of satisfaction out of that." Her role has changed When she first started, Waldman ordered food, cooked and scheduled workers, something she now must delegate to her managers. Now she juggles between her responsibility in overseeing the entire operation and her desire to stay in touch with the employees and the day-to-day activities. During the busier hours of lunch, Waldman likes to work out front with the students picking up napkins or wiping down tables. "Sometimes I run a register or take orders," she says. "I basically do anything." "One of the challenges for me personally with our expanded growth is not being able to know all my employees by name," says Waldman. Students, after all, are one of Waldman's favorite reasons for working. "They're young, they're clever, they're funny, they're bright, they're wacky. I enjoy that," she says. Some of that wackiness reveals itself in a story she relates about how students name the food. "I was in the bakery the other day, and they wanted me to taste some bars that they made. They were date bars and no one like dates in the bakery," she says. Although the bars were asthetically less than appealing, she agreed. "They were kind of brown on top with these little chunks of dough baked on. I tasted them and thought they were delicious." Market this bar She told the workers: "Now all we need to do is market this bar. You guys need to think of a catchy name." The students approached her with an idea, saying: "OK, we thought of a name--'Blind Date Bars.' You never know what you're going to get." Along with their creativity, students present limitations as well, Waldman says. "There's always the challenge of letting school be a priority, especially during finals week. We want school to be a priority, but we also want to teach responsibility at the Coffee House," she says. The fact that students make a up a large proportion of the workers makes the UC Davis Coffee House unique among university and college food service operations across the nation, according to Waldman. All the cooking is done by the students and almost all of it from scratch. The signs are created by the students as well. This makes the atmosphere of the Coffee House distinctly student-oriented. Sharing the experience As a member of the National Association of College and University Food Services, Waldman has shared her experiences at the Coffee House with managers from schools all over the country. Many have visited the Coffee House, including the president of the association, who is also the food services director at Vanderbilt University. "He was just amazed," says Waldman. "He runs a huge operation at Vanderbilt, as you can imagine. And he thought it was the greatest place." Waldman believes that food service operations often get too honed into what they think students want--everything slick, smooth, shiny and flashy. Stainless steel, brass and plants. And sometimes that's not what students want, says Waldman. "He thought it was great we were using the Coke cardboard box bottoms for trays," she says. "He loved all the signs. He thought this is what students really wanted." That's pretty much the feeling from anybody who comes to the Coffee House, according to Waldman. "It's an amazing place and when we start talking numbers--how many people come though this place, what our annual sales are, it's like--wow! It's a huge operation." Christian Tao, a senior majoring in international relations, is Dateline's intern this quarter.