A recent article published by The Johnsonian chronicled Sub Station II owner Charlie Ruffalo’s thirty year struggle for partnership with Winthrop University’s dining service and meal plan. Bryan
Harriss, the university’s current General Manager for Winthrop’s Dining Service, detailed in an interview how prospective restaurants and franchises become partnered with universities.
“There’s a couple of different ways,” Harriss said. “One is the current existing contractual agreement between the contractor and the university. That could have language that would allow partnering with other restaurants to happen and it could have language that might not allow that to happen. In the state of South Carolina, the dining service contracts are managed through the state with a partnership with the university itself. In our particular case, the state put out a request for a proposal where they tell you exactly what they’re looking for in a contract, and that’s what you follow.”
Sodexo, the food service Harriss represents, began its contract as Winthrop’s dining service in July 2018, replacing Aramark. All of the franchisee dining establishments on campus hold national contracts with Sodexo, which carried over from its predecessor service. Harriss said that the contracts held between previously partnered food services and Winthrop could have had conditions that prevented non-contracted businesses from partnering with the university. “Currently, in our relationship, we only have partners that we have national agreements with,” Harriss said. “We don’t have relationships with any local restaurants or businesses that we would bring onto campus at this time.”
Harriss said that he was unsure of whether Sodexo’s contract with Winthrop and the state currently allows partnership with outside businesses, and would require detailing the specifics of the paper
agreement. He explained that while he has heard of Ruffalo’s lengthy campaign for partnership, he has never personally been contacted by the university or the restaurant about forming a business relationship with Sub Station II or other local businesses.
“On a weekly basis, I meet with finance, residence life, student affairs and facilities where we discuss relevant information and issues as it relates to dining services. We’re always evaluating the dining program, and if there’s ever such a time where we felt we needed to change or add an option, we’ll typically examine this on an annual basis to keep up with what’s desired on campus,”
Harriss said. “I wouldn’t foresee us doing anything different this year than what’s currently taking place due to all of the changes that are already existing within our dining program due to the pandemic situation we’re all adjusting to. Hopefully we only have a one year situation dealing with COVID and we can progress past this for next year, but no one knows if that will be the case. We would probably start evaluating the program this spring, where we’d begin looking at necessary changes for Fall 2021.”
The Johnsonian reached out to Winthrop President George Hynd for a comment on Ruffalo’s claims regarding the Winthrop administrations’ relationship with local businesses in the past decades. Hynd’s Executive Assistant Tammie Phillips said in an email that “Dr. Hynd is certainly supportive of small businesses but it is not in the position to comment on this particular statement from
Charlie Ruffalo, as he doesn’t have information on prior discussions or decisions made in the past.”
Though the path moving forward is uncertain for small businesses like Sub Station II, Ruffalo and his staff continue to maintain a sense of pride in being able to support Winthrop students and organizations whenever possible.
“One of my latest mottos I find myself saying is ‘Respect all; it’s that simple.’ That’s our business model here. We don’t tolerate any kind of disrespect for anybody, regardless of social status, race, any of that. We don’t care about anything other than serving you a darn good product,” Ruffalo said.
