Free lunch means lunch line wait time

Jasmine McKnight Business Manager

On a regular day at Arcata High School, the Tiger Cafe lunch line stretches out the front doors of the Fine Arts Building.

The immense popularity of the lunch program seems to be attributed to the NOHUM district offering free food services to all students, regardless of financial means.

“The school lunch program seems to be busier this year than it was last year,” Chef Adam Timek said,

Students have opinions about this situation.

“The line is always so long,” sophomore, Malea Melendrez, said.

Even though the line is so lengthy, she doesn’t see a feasible solution.

“I feel like there’s no way to make it go faster because everyone just wants lunch, and the staff are already so efficient,” Melendrez added.

Even though the lunch line is so long, many students have arrived at a consensus that it really isn’t that unreasonable.

“I’d say it’s pretty long, but it goes by pretty quickly sometimes,” junior, Jared Pereira, said.

Some students have come up with methods to speed up the process. A common observance is cutting in the line. Most students however do not seem bothered by this issue.

“I don’t care,” said junior, junior, Alexander Duarte said.

In order to combat the long lines, students have also adopted strategies to get to the line quicker from class.

“It usually doesn’t take me that long because I am skillful in the way I leave class,” said sophomore, Kyler Truesdell said.

Some students have developed an alternative approach.

“If I go later [in the lunch period,] there’s no line,” junior, Noah Macknicki said.

Some students even suggest waiting until the last ten minutes of lunch to avoid the line completely. There are even more proposals that would make the line go faster.

Pereira suggested having more than one food station to allow students to get their lunch quicker.

Other students, along with Timek, recognize that the line would not take as long if people paid better attention to the line’s movement and made sure to have their student ID numbers prepared ahead of time.

If students have suggestions for improvements to the school lunch program, Timek is always open to suggestions.

“I’m here to serve the students. It’s all about keeping the student body happy, that makes me happy.”