It’s a bit breathtaking to walk into the new GFS Dining Hall in the All School Commons. The expansive dining area in the Smith Gym, flooded with daylight from the huge windows, is lined with enough tables to seat whole divisions at once. The gleaming servery, all stainless steel and subway tile, is open and bright. The staff is warm and accommodating, ready to answer questions or point students, faculty, and staff toward whatever they might be looking for.

And then, there’s the food—nutritious, colorful, and bountiful: leafy spinach salads with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella; burrito bowls with cumin-spiced black beans and grilled Mexican street corn salad; zesty carrot ginger soup; and so, so much more.

Our dining partner in the Dining Hall is Meriwether Godsey (MG), a women-led dining management company based in Virginia. The school’s Selection Committee chose MG because of its fresh approach to food, as well as its company values, which are closely aligned with GFS’. MG’s client roster includes independent day and boarding schools, private colleges, and corporations.

A truly unique facet of MG’s style is how much of the food that’s served is fresh and prepared in-house. Very little is processed, packaged, frozen, or fried; behind the scenes of the GFS servery there is a commercial kitchen fit for a high-volume restaurant, outfitted with convection and combi ovens, pasta cookers, steam tables, a massive dough mixer, and a powerful pizza oven. Here, the kitchen staff preps and cooks food to feed over 1,000 people per day for multiple meals, including breakfast, snack, and lunch. Walter Ellerbe, the new Director of Dining Services at GFS, estimates that upwards of 90% of the food served in the Dining Hall is scratch-made.

Ellerbe will be running the GFS kitchen operations alongside Executive Chef Jerry Weihbrecht. The two have a combined nearly 60 years of culinary experience, ranging from executive chef gigs around the country to corporate catering to cooking for celebrities like Paul McCartney, President Jimmy Carter, and the Temptations. Fun fact: For a time in the 2010s, Ellerbe and Weihbrecht both owned/operated restaurants in Virginia Beach and were acquaintances. They hadn’t seen one another in years, and were surprised and delighted to realize they’d be working together at GFS!  

Weihbrecht and Ellerbe have a good deal of creative autonomy over what food is served each day, and have developed a shared goal of balancing kid-approved favorites, like chicken fingers and pasta, with adventurous options. Instead of coming in with a set vision, they are excited to shape the offerings with the feedback and input of the community.

“I really want to work with the students and staff to see what they’re looking for,” says Weihbrecht. “I can cook a million different things in a million different ways, as can Walter, but it’s more important to us to listen to what we can do for everybody here.”

The menu offerings will change every day, and week over week. At breakfast, there’s housemade granola and Greek yogurt, fruit, cereal, toast, bagels, and a waffle station. At lunch, there will always be pizza, pasta, fresh fruit, and a make-your-own rice bowl, salad bar, and deli bars, with rotating entrees and composed salad specials. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options are plentiful at all meals.

Ellerbe notes that he is particularly excited to work with the community to expand the menu with specials that celebrate the many ethnicities represented at GFS and commemorate cultural holidays.

“For instance, next year for Indigenous Peoples' day, I’m really looking forward to what cuisine we will create around that,” he says. “It’s all about what we can do to bring a cultural melting pot to the school, as well as uplift the history and heritage of the school.” 

In these instances, Weihbrecht is careful to explain, they are going to source authentic ingredients and stay as true as possible to the origins of the dishes.

“If we make a soba noodle bowl, we’re not going to use spaghetti and call it soba—we’re going to use buckwheat soba noodles. When we make Pad Thai, we’re going to use the traditional properly sized rice vermicelli noodles,” he says. 

The operations of the Dining Hall are also keenly focused on sustainability. There is nary a single-use item in sight; the tableware, including dishes and silverware, are reusable. All diners practice good stewardship and bring their plates, cups, and cutlery to the dishwashing station at the end of every meal. In the dishwashing area, there are bins for trash, recycling, and compost—the school is working with Philly-based Bennett Compost to collect this compostable material, as well as all of the kitchen prep food scraps.

As they build their list of purveyors, Ellerbe and Weihbrecht are also focusing on local vendors, like coffee from Many Hands Coffee, bread and rolls from Merzbacher’s of Germantown, fruit from Pennsylvania orchards, and dairy products from Kreider Farms. 

Ultimately, the impetus behind everything that Ellerbe, Weihbrecht, and the whole MG Dining Hall team are doing is about building and strengthening community at GFS.

“When you really think about breaking bread, it’s giving something of yourself to someone else,” Ellerbe says. “We want the food to resonate with everyone here from all walks of life, and then we want their input so we can share a little bit of their history with the community.”

For more information on the GFS Dining Hall, including hours, menus, and the payment system, visit our Dining Services page.