Sodexo, the company supplying food to Webster’s Simply To Go, discontinued sushi on campus last semester. The sushi drought started after the partnership between To Go Sushi, located in Brentwood, and Sodexo ended due to insurance costs, said Samantha Kheim, unit-marketing coordinator for Sodexo at Webster.
Kheim said both Sodexo and To Go Sushi needed a certain degree of insurance to continue their partnership and To Go Sushi was not willing to cover those costs.
“It would have cost so much more money that they decided it wouldn’t make sense for them to serve us and we decided it just wasn’t going to work mutually,” Kheim said.
Webster student Brent Warnhoff said he is disappointed Webster is no longer offering sushi at Simply To Go.
“With it gone I don’t even go there anymore, I walk to UC every time now. I feel like there’s not as much variety there anymore sometimes I go in there is just a couple of sandwiches for six bucks. It’s like a snack size sandwich, it’s not worth it, sushi would actually fill me,” Warnoff said.
Kheim said safety insurance costs went up because of the nature of sushi handling and delivery back and forth from the restaurant to the university.
“Essentially we would have to charge so much to students for them to be able to afford to keep us that it didn’t make sense, we would have had to double our prices and it was already not cheap,” Khein said.
Kheim said Sodexo is now trying to include certain fish and tuna in the simply to go program. She said Sodexo is making it in-house at Webster.
The Journal contacted To Go Sushi for comment but they declined.
Toni Claus, an employee at Webster’s Simply To Go station in the East Academic Building, said the sushi was extremely popular amongst students. She said though the sushi has been gone for a whole semester, students still ask her about it.
“I had somebody yesterday ask me about it, everyday at least one person asks me about it,” Claus said. “It was very popular, they would deliver at least two to three times a day because we would sell out and usually at the end of the night we wouldn’t have any leftovers.”
Warnoff said if prices were raised reasonably he would not mind paying extra. He said the upside to the sushi in the East Academic Building did not have to do with price, but more out of comfort.
“I would buy it more out of convenience so I wouldn’t have to walk and be able to stay in this building,” Warnoff said.
Jules Brown, a student at Webster, said it was nice to have the different options at the Simply To Go locations around campus.
“Sometimes you want something different besides the stuff you normally get at a cafeteria style grab and go kind of thing, and sushi is, I don’t want to say exotic, but it’s something else,” Brown said.
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