Chef Michael Omo (right) helps prep food in the Arizona Room, a campus restaurant.
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The University of Arizona Student Union is crowded most days even before noon. Lines form in front of the Burger King and Einstein Bros Bagels, but the longest snakes down the hallway from the Chick-Fil-A counter.
On a recent Tuesday, freshman Alessandra Flores walked past the popular chicken line, opting instead for a much faster journey to the IQ Fresh cashier.
"Can I have the crispy chicken Caesar wrap with no pickles? "
Flores said she chose IQ Fresh because it's a healthier option between classes.
What she doesn't necessarily realize is what it takes to get the raw ingredients from the loading docks behind the Student Union, to the kitchen where the chicken in her wrap is sautéed, and then to IQ and the other 41 restaurants on campus, where, like her, hundreds of hungry customers devour their orders before rushing off to class.
A lot of thought has been put into the food that’s served on campus, and there’s one man in charge of it all: Executive Chef Michael Omo.
Omo is known around campus not as Michael or Mike or Mr. Omo but always as Chef Omo.
His day begins early. He meets with his sous chefs and checks stock lists. A few hours before the lunchtime rush he heads to a massive kitchen in the basement of the student union.
The surfaces are shiny and clean and in just one of the multiple sections, more than 10 people chop, peel, and dice vegetables that will soon be tossed into salads or blended into salsas.
Chef Omo checks that everything’s running smoothly.
As he walks to the next section he greets people by name and grabs a spoon, which he plunges into the red chile beef.
"It’s very spicy," he said, after trying a bite. "The meat is really tender 'cause it’s been brazing for a while. Very good."
Chef Omo and his staff serve about 30,000 meals a day. He’s been in this job for almost two years and came to the position with a lot of experiences preparing food a high volumes.
"I came from Las Vegas," he said. "Previously I worked at the MGM Grand Hotel and ran the whole operation there."
The MGM Grand is one of the biggest hotels in the world. Chef Omo said he’s always preferred working in mega kitchens that turn out thousands of meals a day.
His new job has posed different challenges. Chef Omo said there are a number of differences between working in a big hotel filled with not-so-young adults and working on campus, where most of his customers are in their late teens or early 20s.
"People in this age bracket are much more open than older people. I think that they want to be more healthy. They want to know what’s in it. They want to know where it came from. So for me that’s a great challenge. I have to be more educated."
After he’s checked out all the various stations in his sprawling kitchen, Omo heads upstairs to the front lines of his operation.
Just as he did downstairs, he makes sure that the food students receive across the counter looks - and tastes - just as it should. As it did yesterday and it will tomorrow.
"Our customers need to know that they'll get what they expect each time they order it," Omo said. "That's what keeps them coming back."
And just two weeks into her freshman year, Alessandra Flores has already come back for this same wrap on a number of different days. She said it keeps her full until dinner.
By the time dinner roles around, preparations in Omo's kitchens will already be in full swing for tomorrow's meals.
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