Sizzle, zest, and color are bountiful on the University Village dining plates. Eating regular well-balanced and nutritious meals is another important aspect of healthy living and successful aging. The chefs, kitchen and wait staff make eating a pleasurable and nutritious experience.

Chef Gary Rogers has been serving University Village residents for over 16 years. His long spanning career began here when he was in his early twenties. He has trained and mentored under Chef Fred Lucardi and worked his way up from line cook, to head cook, and is now Su Chef which also includes purchasing everything related to dining at University Village.

Preparing meals seven days a week for the University Village residents takes a coordinated team effort. Chef Gary schedules the 25 employees ensuring coverage each day and for each mealtime. Residents choose lunch or dinner and have a choice of the Grand Buffet dining room or four other full service dining rooms.

Chef Fred and Chef Gary have spent the last six months working on a project to specify the nutrition for each item on the menu. The Chefs offer new recipes, variety, and tweak the old ones to conform to new standards for lower salt and healthy dining. The nutritional information will be available for all residents to view to make it even easier to make healthy and balanced meal choices.

Chef Gary has seen the evolution and transition of what residents like and request on the menu. Years ago they experimented with soft ice cream; however, back then residents preferred traditional ice cream. Now the soft serve frozen yogurt machine is a huge hit!

Chef Gary loves his job and says that no matter what other fields he tried in the past, he always returned to the kitchen. University Village is grateful to have him and looks forward to many more years of his dedicated service.