In a kitchen that was once a bedroom, a small team of chefs turns out falafel in a pita with salad and pickles, grilled salmon with lemon and peppers, chicken wraps with lettuce and tomatoes, and flame-grilled burgers four days a week — all prepared to meet kosher dining requirements. 

The Rooftop at USC Chabad Jewish Student Center will offer students a hot, kosher meal option through their existing USC meal plans for the first time. On Monday through Thursday from 6 to 8:30 p.m., the restaurant will serve meals prepared under the supervision of a rabbi. Any student is eligible to use their standard meal swipes to receive a meal, just as they would at any dining hall.

“We wanted to, as much as possible, replicate that experience of a university dining hall. The student should be able to bring a friend to have a meal with them, to try it out together with them,” said Rabbi Dov Wagner, co-director of USC Chabad. “So after all the conversations, the agreement was made that the best way USC can do that currently is [to say that] anybody with a meal swipe can use it any time. There’s no restriction.”

He said that, since opening this semester, USC Chabad has hosted 30 to 40 people each night. Wagner estimated that 200 to 300 students at USC maintain some level of kosher and are looking for kosher-friendly options in their dining choices.

Wagner said kosher is the “biblically based” diet observed by some Jews.

“There are religious laws about what kinds of foods we [can] eat and what kinds we can’t, both what types of animals [and] how they’re prepared,” Wagner said. “To observe a kosher diet is to eat food that, from the beginning of its production through to the plates, is following the rules.”

In the past, USC students could either purchase a to-go kosher meal from Seeds Marketplace or a reheated kosher meal at dining halls. Varun Soni, dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, mentioned the school had also utilized food trucks serving kosher meals at one point. 

However, Ariana Ettedgui, a sophomore majoring in business administration, said the Seeds meals were not very good, and she worried whether the dining hall microwaves used to heat meals were kept kosher.

“[I appreciate] having the ability to go to Chabad and not have to cook every single day of the week and just take a break one day and go order something,” Ettedgui said. “Being able to actually use my meal plan that I am, unfortunately, required to have through USC policy, being able to actually use it for food, is just a blessing.” 

Ettedgui got a religious accommodation to have a kitchen during her freshman year and said she currently prepares meals for each week. She said the nearest kosher restaurant was in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, which was hard to access and expensive to order delivery.

“It’s really amazing to have the option to have kosher food when we choose,” said Paxton Clark, a freshman majoring in world bachelor of business. “As someone who’s not super religious, but I’m Jewish, to have that option to have both the dining hall and this is amazing.”

Soni pointed to the new USC Chabad facility as the direct impetus for the new meal-plan-included system. USC reimburses Chabad for each meal it serves at the rate used at dining halls. However, Wagner said kosher food is more expensive than nonkosher items, and he expects the operation will lose money during the first year. 

“It’s sort of a chicken-and-the-egg challenge,” Soni said. “Without a kosher meal plan, we don’t have kosher-observant students really enrolling at USC. But without those students, it’s hard to say that we have the need for the plan.”

Both Robin Mitchell Stroud, director of student engagement programs for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, and Wagner said the University has explored the potential of a kosher dining facility on campus in the past, completing a feasibility study. The University did not confirm the status of any plans prior to publication.

“We didn’t want to charge students for a meal plan that they couldn’t use, [and] we wanted to get to a point where any student on a meal plan could get a fresh, hot, kosher meal at the proper level of supervision,” Soni said. “The pilot project allows us to achieve both those objectives.”

Soni said his office also works with Muslim, Hindu and Jain students to provide dietary accommodations, though that doesn’t necessarily look like a specific meal plan addition. 

“There’s a larger vision in terms of religious accommodation, but each community has different dietary needs and restrictions and approaches,” Soni said. “There’s not a sort of cut-and-paste solution to all of it. We have to work with each community to find the right solution for that community.”

Soni and Wagner said the facility matters not just for current kosher students, but also for cultural representation and for making USC an option for students of all backgrounds.

“It matters a lot to the students who keep kosher,” Soni said. “It matters a lot to the larger Jewish community that, even if they don’t keep kosher, knows that they’re at a university that takes their needs and their aspirations seriously. And it matters to the University as a whole, that we accommodate students who come from diverse backgrounds, perspectives, points of view.”