Antonia Monteiro, the Blue Room’s supervisor, has just been sent to voicemail after calling Andrews Commons for help. She tries the Sharpe Refectory next.
Since all seven of Brown’s dining halls share materials and ingredients, this sort of call is not unusual. “I make sure we have everything we need,” said Monteiro, who spends most mornings taking inventory of supplies and making orders on her computer.
The Blue Room is one of five retail dining locations at Brown, meaning that almost everything — from the chicken salad to the pastries to even sliced deli meat — is prepared off-site. The muffins, though, are delivered frozen but baked fresh every morning.
This year will be Monteiro’s 25th with Dining Services. On her office wall hangs a service award thanking her for 20 years of hard work. “At 25, they get you a rocking chair,” she joked.
Monteiro started out as a food service worker at the Ratty and has jumped around from the Ivy Room to the Engineering Research Center Cafe and finally to the Blue Room, where she joined as a lead. Five years ago, she was promoted to supervisor, and the memory stands out to her as one of the most meaningful during her time at Brown.
Since then, she has begun every morning the same way, rising just before 6 a.m. and taking the bus to work. “I do the assignment sheet for the day, (figure out) what everybody’s stations are going to be, (and) I bring it upstairs,” she explained. “And then I get my coffee.”
Monteiro takes it with cream and sugar. Her Blue Room sandwich order is just as “boring,” she said, and her coworkers make fun of her for it. It’s just “a piece of ham and a piece of cheese.”
Managing over 10 staff members, Monteiro is constantly moving between her downstairs office and the counter upstairs. When things get busy and students are queuing out the door, she’ll hop behind the counter with her staff and start spreading bagels or wrapping sandwiches.
“Every day is a different challenge,” she said. With so many moving parts, there’s never a dull moment at the Blue Room. “It’s ‘Antonia, we don’t have this, Antonia, we’re out of this,’” she said. “I call the Ratty: ‘Do you have mozzarella cheese? I forgot to order mozzarella cheese.’”
Today, though, it’s provolone. Since everything at the Blue Room comes in fresh each morning, it can be difficult to get the exact order numbers right. With pastries coming from Seven Stars Bakery, muffins from Sysco and bread — ordered 72 hours in advance — from Iggy’s Doughboys and Chowder House, Monteiro spends a lot of her day focused on stock.
Up until now, the morning has been relatively calm. It’s a Tuesday, so there’s no 10 a.m. rush at the bagel bar. “But then (at 10:30 a.m.), the bagel bar turns into the salad bar,” Monteiro said. “That’s when the chaos starts.”
While the bagel bar transforms, the deli station is preparing sandwiches for express deliveries. Faculty and staff often pre-order from the Blue Room to cater meetings, Monteiro explained. On the other side of the line, Monteiro is informing students that the sandwiches won’t be available until 11 a.m., and she high-fives a faculty member leaving with his coffee.
“I like the interaction,” Monteiro said. “I like the customer service part” of the job.
Monteiro is from Cape Verde and came to the U.S. when she was 16. She went to Hope High School, only a few blocks north of Brown. After her older brother started working for the University’s Department of Facilities Management, she decided to follow in his footsteps.
“Brown is a great place to work,” she said. “You come across all different people from all over the world. That is my favorite part, to get to know other people.”
But since Monteiro became a supervisor, the atmosphere has changed, she said. Since the line workers are unionized and management is not, it sometimes feels like there is a divide between the two, according to Monteiro.
“I wish there wasn’t, but there is,” she said. “We all work together, and to me, we just have different responsibilities.”
When Monteiro first started at the Blue Room, it was entirely staffed by students. “I had such a great relationship with the kids,” she said, noting that there used to be a lot more interaction between students and Dining Services staff. Now, she doesn’t get to mingle with students as much as she used to — something she misses.
In general, Monteiro said Brown students are polite and follow the rules, aside from ordering wraps with every ingredient offered or occasionally forgetting to swipe. “At busy times we have to close the door,” she said, but rarely does it get more serious than that.
Morning operation of the Blue Room. Up until now, the morning has been relatively calm.
Before and after the lunch rush, Monteiro will catch up on administrative work — finalizing orders, collecting invoices and dealing with repairs. She packs a lunch from home, though for breakfast she’ll always grab something quick from the bagel bar.
By 3 p.m., the chaos winds down. After cleaning up, Monteiro catches the bus back home, where her dog and daughter greet her. Every day, she takes the dog for a walk, then takes herself on a second walk since her dog is too old to go very far. She makes dinner and unwinds by watching YouTube streamers on her phone — Kai Cenat is her favorite.
Monday through Friday, she’ll do it all over again.
This Tuesday is less busy than usual. By 10:42 a.m., the provolone cheese has arrived, and the breakfast latecomers are being redirected. “No more salmon — we’re closed!” yells one Blue Room staffer.
Monteiro heads back downstairs to her office, located behind the Campus Market, and hopes to make a dent in her busy inbox.
Instead, her lead food service worker is waiting for her. “We only have two broccoli cheddar left,” her lead announces.
The Blue Room is out of soup.
Maya Nelson is a university news and metro editor covering undergraduate student life as well as business and development. She’s interested in studying either English or Literary Arts and loves to read sci-fi and fantasy in her free time. She also enjoys playing guitar, crocheting and spending an unreasonable amount of time on NYT Spelling Bee.
