Being in charge of feeding people can take a lot of forms. For some, it might mean making mac and cheese for the 12th consecutive night for your kids. For others, it can mean making mac and cheese for the 12th consecutive night for hundreds of college athletes.
John Engelman is the host of the podcast Flavors of Northwest Arkansas. He recently spoke to Tim Walsh, the executive chef for the University of Arkansas Athletics. Tim tells John that he got started doing the dishes and working in kitchens at a young age, and eventually heard about college dining from friends.
Walsh: They were like, “Come over. You know, come here. We don’t work holidays, we don’t work weekends, we don’t work late nights.” And, you know, those are all the things that we were pretty used to doing.
So I started working here on campus as a cook at one of our facilities and just kind of went from there. I went to Arkansas Tech for four years. I was the executive chef there.
Engelman: Oh, nice.
Walsh: And then I got a call and they said, “We’re opening this new athletic facility. Would you come be our executive chef?” So I said, “Let’s do it.”
Engelman: Wow.
Walsh: Yeah.
Engelman: That’s a big switch.
Walsh: Oh yeah. Yeah. Kind of a change, right? Well, once you get used to that mass feeding — the college dining — it translates pretty well.
Engelman: And correct me if I’m wrong, please. I would assume it’s like catering every day.
Walsh: It is. It’s a lot like catering. Even in athletics, it’s even more so. It’s a little less forecastable. There’s a lot of moving parts — workouts, schedules, the weather. Our team’s in town, our team’s out of town. So there are a lot of variables.
Engelman: I talked to chefs all the time who do catering on the side. They’ll get an event and plan months in advance for a chef’s table dinner or something like that. How far in advance are you doing that here?
Walsh: Well, we have really good plans. We make very good plans. And then we remain ready to turn on a dime and go in any other direction than we had originally planned. When you’re dealing with teams, all it takes is one event for 30 to 50 people not to show up for a meal. So we do a lot of cooking to order, trying to minimize waste, and focus more on having leftover ingredients rather than leftover food — and cooking as fresh as we can.
Engelman: I would assume the main dish changes quite a bit. With that being the case, how far out in advance — say just for this week — how far in advance do you order for that week?
Walsh: We order out as far as we can. We also don’t have a lot of space in this building, so we order three trucks a week from both our purveyor and produce as well. But we’ve got to stay on top of it pretty well.
Engelman: I would think the whole thing is planning.
Walsh: Oh yeah. Again, a lot of planning and then a lot of being ready for your plan not to be feasible anymore.
Engelman: Let’s say we’re in November and it’s a Tuesday. What does that day look like for you?
Walsh: Tuesday in November. It’s all day, day by day. It’s coming in, looking at the schedule, seeing who’s here. We have really good communication from the teams and managers that tell us who’s in town, what they’re doing, if schedules change. It’s a lot of communication.
Engelman: So you’re basically working through even for– not that day– but days going forward.
Walsh: Oh yeah, that’s the main focus.
Engelman: Football season arrives, and I know you’re a chef for all of Arkansas athletics. You told me how many?
Walsh: Thirteen sports. The way they’re chopped up. Okay. But football season is huge. And it’s also soccer season, volleyball season, cross country — a lot of moving parts.
Engelman: I would think they all launch at the same time.
Walsh: It staggers. Sometimes they pile up on each other, but for the most part, they stagger pretty well.
Engelman: Of course you have experience in this now and a staff and everything, but when you’ve got that much kicking off and happening — I would assume it’s the busiest time of year.
Walsh: Yeah, the start of fall is the busiest.
Engelman: Is that the time when it’s hard to sleep?
Walsh: Yeah, until everything falls into its grooves. Class schedules are always different; we always have to wait and see what those look like. Training and travel schedules — everything’s based off each other.
Engelman: What does your master schedule look like?
Walsh: It’s in pencil. A lot of pencil. A lot of erasing.
Engelman: And intimidating?
Walsh: Yeah. But again, my staff and the athletic staff are really good at watching for cues and being ready to switch it up.
Engelman: I’d like to get into food sourcing and how you guys go about that.
Walsh: So I work for Chartwells. Chartwells works with Foodbuy. Foodbuy manages all the sourcing and sustainability initiatives and stuff like that, so they do a really good job. We do work with some local farms here and there. A lot of times, the volume we go through on things is kind of — we’ll take a handful of things here and there — but it’s a pretty big operation.
Engelman: I would think so, and I would think it’s fluid.
Walsh: Yes. Chartwells has a hydroponic freight farm on campus — which I’m sure I could get you a peek at. We do some lettuce out of that that we serve in the dining halls. I think we did 700 pounds last semester when we did it. We also have a rooftop garden on campus. We do jalapeño peppers there that we serve in the dining halls. So, yeah, we do what we can locally and on our own. But for the most part, we rely on a company to guide us in the right direction.
Engelman: I’ve got to ask — are you also a farmer now? Are you tending those at all?
Walsh: No, I just enjoy the fruits.
Engelman: And the vegetables, as it were.
Walsh: Exactly, as it were.
Engelman: That’s great. I had no idea that existed and you guys were doing that here.
Walsh: Oh yeah, that’s great. It’s a shipping container converted to a hydro setup inside. It’s pretty neat.
Engelman: Deliveries — I know you guys are especially with Chartwells and the way you’re set up — are deliveries always on time, or do things run out and you’ve got to be nimble and turn on a dime?
Walsh: Yeah, I mean, you can’t always depend 100 percent on anything. Of course, we never order anything for the day of service — though sometimes it happens. Depends if we get a meal dropped on us or something didn’t come in before. But our Sysco truck just got here 30 minutes ago, and it’s 1:30 right now. I’m glad I wasn’t waiting for anything on that truck. So it’s just like everything else — plan pretty well, but be ready for it not to show up.
Engelman: What’s it like working the feed line when it’s noon or six o’clock — whenever the biggest traffic hits?
Walsh: It can be kind of stressful. The eating habits change sometimes, so you’ll serve something one meal that gets destroyed, then the next meal they switch to something else. So you’re always watching, keeping an eye on it, seeing if you have to produce more. You definitely don’t want to run out. We don’t run out. That’s a big deal. So just being vigilant — don’t overproduce, but don’t run out.
Engelman: That’s a tough line to walk, man.
Walsh: It is, but you get good at that after a while.
Engelman: What does the path look like to feeding the athletes? Do you start with the nutritionists and get their input and then order from there? What does it look like?
Walsh: I make the menus and then review them with dietitians. Then we regroup as needed, adjust as needed. With all the sports we serve, there are a lot of different nutritional directions that people go in. Our main goal here is to have that spectrum covered — so each person has what they’re looking for based on their needs. We meet regularly and go over things, see if we need to add more of something or less of something. So, a lot of communication.
Tim Walsh is the executive chef for the University of Arkansas Athletics. You can hear his full conversation with John Engelman, host of Flavors of Northwest Arkansas, on YouTube or your podcast app of choice
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
