Written by Carey Linkous
Do you ever wonder who makes the food that you eat in Commons? Who is behind the scenes doing all of the work? This week I got to meet Chef Lane Downing, who is extremely instrumental in making sure that all Roanoke College students have fresh food options.
Chef Lane is the morning chef in Commons. He arrives at 6:00am each morning and is preparing meals by 6:15am. He’s been at RC for 20 years and he told me that he loves it. Talking about the staff in Commons, he says, “We’re probably the best kept secret in the Roanoke Valley. We’ve got a lot of great talent here, a lot of culinary talent from the top down… We don’t just slap food together; we take a lot of pride in it. I don’t know how well documented we are, but we are a good working team. I’ve been in this business a long time and this is still one of the best places I’ve ever been.”
Chef Lane’s clear love of RC was clear while I spoke with him. He seemed to be sincerely happy to be doing what he was doing, and as a student, that was exciting to see.
Chef Lane says that his favorite days in Commons are Mondays. This is interesting to me because I know that personally, for me, Mondays can sometimes be the worst day of the week. “We usually know that we’re going to be busy,” he told me. Chef Lane is often working behind the scenes preparing our meals for us and his work has such an impact on so many of the RC students.
Concluding my interview with him, I asked one final question about how he had seen Commons change over the years. “I think [the change] is for the good,” he said, “We’ve kept up with trends, we try to keep changing as time goes on. Tastes change, kids like different things. We’ve done a lot of menu changes in the past 20 years. It’s constantly evolving, but that’s a nice challenge for us.”
Talking to Chef Lane reminded me just how much the RC community and staff truly do care about the students. Chef Lane’s passion and love of culinary arts was inspiring to me. I can only hope that each student here can find a career one day that we love the same way that Chef Lane loves his job.
