For better or for worse, St. Luke’s lunch changed from one wave to two waves.

Last year, St. Luke’s had one lunch wave when all the upper school students ate.  The cafeteria was crowded, loud, and had long lines. To solve this problem, Mr. Yavenditti created two lunch waves.  This decision was necessary to create more space for students and help the FLIK staff.

Mr. Yavenditti said, “There literally would not be enough seats to have about 400 students and faculty at the same time. And having that number of people at the same time also puts a strain on our FLIK staff.”

Now with two lunch waves, students have more space, but there’s a chance students’ friends will eat at different times.  This is true for Patrick Gunn ‘26, who said, “there are some lunches that I don’t share with many or any of my friends.”

Some students like Reese Kubick ‘25 feel that having two lunch waves adds unnecessary stress. Kubick said, “Even though I’m a social person it still isn’t easy to sit with new people even for me.”

Even more so, this could be frustrating for students who are new to the school and don’t have many friends.  The hardest thing for a new student is trying to find the right friend group, and constantly changing lunch waves makes that very difficult.

Also, many students find it difficult to eat lunch early in the morning. Alan Calver ‘24 said, “eating lunch at 11:10 never sits right. I’m usually not hungry yet, and I am always hungry by 1:00.”

It is difficult to imagine changing the lunch waves back to what it was last year because there would be too many students and not enough seats. However, Calver has a solution:

“I propose… implementing a free breakfast for students that show up early” because it would “keep students nourished throughout the whole day.”

This is a fantastic idea because it keeps the two lunch waves but also provides alternate solutions.

The 2 lunch waves might be difficult to adjust to, but it helps keep the cafeteria workers less stressed and the students don’t have to wait in long lines.