Yay Lunch has been the lunch and snack provider for the past two years at Regina Dominican. Yay Lunch offers a variety of items from snacks to different energy drinks. They also provide different lunch options that are brought in daily from local restaurants in the area. 

Before Yay Lunch,  Marla’s Lunch Service and Kiddo’s Lunch Service Service served Regina. Both services also provided food from local restaurants. Before food service companies delivered food from area restaurants, Regina had a cafeteria that was cooked fresh in the cafeteria’s kitchen. There are still those who fondly remember the chicken and potatoes bowl and the gooey chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately, the pandemic shut down many school cafeterias and many of these companies went out of business. The trend in 2024 is that food service companies coordinate and deliver food from different local restaurants. 

Students appreciate the friendly staff of Yay Lunch and many of their food choices like Monday’s chicken tenders, but many students miss the original Yay hours.  At the beginning of the 2023 school year, Yay Lunch opened at 7:30 am, and closed at 3:30 pm. This allowed students to access breakfast and an after-school snack. Yay Lunch and breakfast items were a big success among students. They offered breakfast foods like breakfast sandwiches, bagels, and delicious muffins. Students were very pleased with the availability of breakfast items at school because sometimes it’s hard to have time to eat breakfast at home.

This year, Yay Lunch shortened their hours and is only open from 10:30 am – 2:00 pm. This limits the opportunity for students to have any access to an after-school snack or a breakfast to start their day.

Many of the students and staff have stated they want breakfast back, including Regina’s nurse, Nurse Marti Barthel, who  said, “Bring back breakfast – one of the most important meals of the day,”

Everyone knows inflation has been an issue across the country. With rising food prices, Yay Lunch had to adjust their prices. A survey sent out to the Regina community echoed the increasing prices that have affected all food restaurants and grocery stores is also seen with Yay lunch. 

Junior Sarah Ali said prices should be lowered because a slice of pizza is $7 and the four piece chicken tenders is $8. 

Fred Donnelly Regina’s Vice President of Finance & Operations, spoke to us about Yay Lunch in a recent interview. Donnelly had spoken about the journey of finding Yay Lunch, along with the “extensive search” that he had gone through. 

Before deciding on Yay Lunch, he reached out to neighboring schools like Loyola Academy to see what their lunch service was like. After getting a bid, it was decided that Loyola’s food service choice was too expensive. 

Donnelly then reached out to alumni who owned local restaurants to see if they would be interested in cooking for Regina. Unfortunately, the alum could not shoulder the cost of this opportunity due to no money-making aspect. 

He told us that the reason for Yay Lunch was that it was an option that was affordable to Regina. If Regina were to pick a different lunch service there would be an added cost on the families, no matter what as many food service companies require everyone in the school to purchase a lunch on a daily basis. 

Donnelly explained that either cost would have increased Regina’s tuition if the school were to choose a more expensive option. The tuition would go up to cover the cost of a food service to come in and supply all students with daily lunch, whether they wanted the lunch or not.  Both Loyola and North Shore Country Day requires its students to purchase a daily lunch, with this cost added on to their tuition.

Education was another factor in why Yay Lunch was brought in. Donnelly had said, “Having Yay Lunch allows us to invest more in education.” Without having to invest the cost into tuition, Regina provides lunch without requiring it.

Though the prices of Yay Lunch seems overpriced to many, Donnelly said Regina does not make much profit off of it. 

Yay lunch provides hot lunches to students without students having the daily cost of lunch added to their tuition. Students are free to bring their own lunch or grab something from Yay Lunch. It