Concession stand - why I hate nachos with cheese

CSF at University Park runs a concession stand in Beaver Stadium for each Penn State home game. The money they make off this helps fund many ministry activities. One or two times each year, CSF Berks travels to the game and works the stand with UP. We then get a portion of the profit also. Money aside, it is a fun trip!

This past weekend we worked the game against Temple. It was the first time I worked the stand in two years, since I couldn't make it last year, but little has changed. I volunteered to be a cashier, with Emily as my "runner". Basically, I took the orders and the money while Emily retrieved the food. Having both worked the stand as students, we are veterans and make a pretty good team.

Unfortunately, I got stuck right in the middle of the stand. There are six lines, each with a cashier. Being on the end is just better, but I did not claim a spot soon enough so I was in the middle. This meant that Emily had to go to one corner of the stand or the other for soda orders, we had no soda nearby. But soda was not the problem. Nachos with cheese was.

There are two machines that dispense nacho cheese. I imagine someone designed these machines in the 1800s, shortly after the invention of nachos with cheese, and the design has not been improved upon. When the machine runs out of cheese you need to remove the bag (pouch?) that is now empty and replace it with a full one. The process for this refil is difficult and only one or two people in the stand, out of about forty, seemed to know how to do it. On Saturday one of the machines was broken, so the only one working was practically right behind my cashier station. Thus, most of the day I had a line of people behind me waiting for cheese or trying to fill up cheese.

Furthermore, people running around in tight spaces with cups full of liquid cheese is a recipe for disaster. Early in the game a worker carrying nacho cheese ran into Emily, spilling nacho cheese on Emily's white PSU sweatshirt. Later in the game she got more spilled on her. Needless to say, that sweatshirt has probably been worn for the last time!

So if any engineers are reading this I have a challenge: design a better nacho cheese dispenser for Beaver Stadium!

Overall it was a good trip, despite my animosity towards nacho cheese. We had a good group of students go up from Berks and I enjoyed seeing many old Berks students who now to to UP. I am grateful that we can partner with CSF UP in this stand once a semester. We might try to plan another trip up for they can certainly use the help. But if I go I think I will volunteer for pretzel maker or soda filler...whatever keeps me away from nachos with cheese!!!