More than two dozen employees of the Squamish-based catering company that has prepared and served food at the Quest University cafeteria and coffee shop since they opened were "shocked" to learn last week that they would be out of jobs as of sometime this week, their employer said.
Gregg Van Hierden, owner of G-Van Catering, on Thursday (Feb. 24) said a disagreement over a proposal to renegotiate the contract to serve food at Quest resulted in a parting of ways between his company and the university.
Toran Savjord, the university's vice president of operations and development, on Wednesday (Feb. 23) described the change as a business decision. While university officials hadn't yet chosen a new catering company for the cafeteria, he promised there would be no interruption in food service for students and other cafeteria patrons.
"It'll change at the beginning of [March] - we're not exactly sure which day," Savjord said.
"We're working on it. I was in meetings all day [Wednesday] with food vendors, trying to figure out the best move-forward plan. We're looking for similar service, definitely."
No decision on a new catering contract and when it might take effect had been announced as of press time on Thursday (March 3).
G-Van has had the contract to provide food service at the Quest cafeteria since it opened in 2007. Van Hierden said the company has approximately 26 full-time equivalent employees whose food and service were widely regarded as excellent.
Van Hierden said the contract with Quest was for the caterer to gradually increase the quantity of food served to meet university's projected capacity of 800 students, with 600 of those on a pre-paid meal plan.
For the past 3 years, G-Van had been in a preliminary phase of building up the service to meet the needs of 300 students, at which time the term of the contract was to officially begin, he said.
University officials recently approached him about making changes to the contract, Van Hierden said.
"They said they couldn't operate under my current contract and that they wanted to make changes to it. But I agreed to make changes to it and they took the changes and ran with them and spun it the other way
"I went back to them and said, 'Now that you've made those changes, I can't operate [the cafeteria] under that.' They weren't willing to make further changes."
Van Hierden said that for the past few months, approximately 150 students have been on the meal plan. He said he's not entirely sure how many Quest students were not on the meal plan because university officials wouldn't tell him.
"I couldn't get a straight answer," he said. "And that's part of the issue in my effort to bargain in good faith, is that I wasn't getting a lot of that back."
He added, "Everything we've done as a company has been working toward being full. We've never really operated at a net gain. We've always sort of reinvested and built along with everything. It's very frustrating and disappointing because this was a full concept and they didn't want to work with me, apparently."
When he informed his employees of the decision, they were "shocked because we've been working toward being full this entire process," he said.
"I wish my employees the best in their future. They've been loyal employees and if anyone's looking for good staff, I'd highly recommend any of them. I also thank the people who've come up from in town. There have been steady patrons who've supported us. The feedback and support was just phenomenal."
As for G-Van, Van Hierden said he plans to "get some space and open up a full-time catering company and hopefully carry on serving good food to the people of the corridor."
