The Ville Grill, located on 3rd Street and Brandeis, is one of the healthier and more affordable dining options in the area and it’s open to everyone. When you enter, you pay with cash or your meal plan for an all-you-can-eat meal.
In addition to a soup and salad bar, the Ville Grill has eight different food stations to choose from: FlyingStar diner, The Comfort Station, Magellans’, Basic Needs Deli, Simple Servings, Wild Mushrooms, Bella Trattoria and JustDesserts. Executive Chef Melissa Ingram describes them as ranging from “all of the stuff that mom makes” to allergen free and vegetarian options.
The Ville Grill is a healthy choice due to the cooks’ made-from-scratch methods. Ingram describes this preparation style: “Everything is made here…so we can honestly say that this dish only has this many grams of fat or this much sugar.”
The Ville Grill has tray-less dining. This allows for less water to be used for dish-washing and leads to taking less food which creates less food waste. Any remaining waste is picked up by a recycling company and composted for use as nutritious and natural fertilizer for plants.
The Ville Grill also plays an important part in the university’s efforts to source food more sustainably. UofL’s contract with Sodexo requires that at least 15 percent of food comes from farms or businesses within a 250-mile radius. This contract enables UofL to support the local community as well as serve tastier and more nutritious food. Additionally, the Ville Grill serves all fair trade coffee and tea, showing small farms and labor practices are being respected abroad.
If you haven’t tried the Ville Grill yet, you should. From the words of graduate student and nutrition navigator JoHanna Abell, “the meals at the Ville Grill are always top notch.”
Make sure to check out the annual farm-to-table dinner on October 24 at the Ville Grill during UofL Sustainability Week.
For more, see sustainable dining at UofL; The Ville Grille.
–Abigail Cheskis. Abigail is a Middlebury College student who worked with the UofL Sustainability Council this summer as part of FoodWorks, a program that focuses on food and sustainability.