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My favorite meal at my work cafeteria is the mid-week taco salad special. Utilizing a well thought out strategy, this tasty treat can be one of the best deals in town.

The cafeteria at work operates on a unique system known as “lunch lady arithmetic.” Unlike regular arithmetic (or math if you will), lunch lady arithmetic varies from day to day. The price of any given item in the cafeteria is determined by an unknown baseline value (very few prices are actually posted) plus or minus some variation from the mean. The variation is largely driven by the type of item and the lady that is ringing you up. Prepared food like eggs and oatmeal have a much wider distribution than packaged items like chips or milk. So one day you go in and pay $2.44 for some scrambled eggs and an English muffin while the next day it may ring up at $3.21 or potentially something with a one handle if you’re lucky. This kind of risk/reward makes the simple act of eating at the cafeteria an exciting adventure.

The key to successfully navigating the minefield known as the downstairs cafeteria is proper planning (always remember the 6 P’s…proper planning prevents piss poor performance). Taco salad day is no exception to this rule with an extra twist (as if it wasn’t fun enough already!). The twist is also what makes the taco salad such a bargain. Somewhere along the lines, the powers that be decided that they would offer a half taco salad for those that didn’t want to consume a whole one. To the lunch ladies credit, simple logic dictated that a half salad should equal half the cost. Since the price of the taco salad is actually posted on the wall (one of the few that is), this makes the total cost relatively certain, which is great for those, such as myself, who don’t like to play roulette with their lunch money.

The second key to a successful taco salad outing is choosing the correct time of day to make your purchase. The great thing about a half taco salad is that it 1) comes in a full taco salad shell and 2) typically includes about 3/4 of the amount of filling as a full taco salad (market inefficiency at its finest). Therefore, the goal of any wise 1/2 taco salad consumer is to maximize the amount of filling while maintaining the relatively stable and low cost basis. The size of the 1/2 taco salad greatly depends on who is building it. If it is a chef (at least the guys wearing a tall puffy hat and a white apron) you are in luck, but if it is the cafeteria manager, your 1/2 TS (as we like to call ‘em) is going to be a true half. Suffice it to say, the manager has a monthly P/L and doesn’t like to give away his precious TS filling for free, while the employees (or chefs) are paid hourly and aren’t incentivized to skimp.

It is a little known fact that the chefs take their 30 minute lunch break shortly after the TS is first served (around 11:00). During this time the probability of getting a “large half” TS are minimal as the cafeteria manager does all the building. Occasionally a lunch lady will pinch hit, which is a pleasant surprise anytime you belly starts grumbling before 11:30. After 11:30, you have a 50/50 chance of catching a chef or the manager and somewhere toward the end of the lunch hour (12:30ish) you are almost certain to get an employee.

But here in lies the rub for ol’ Franco. I happen to start work at the butt crack of dawn so my stomach wakes up at an hour after the butt crack of dawn and gets hungry for lunch very early in the day (like 10:30). So every week I have to face the conundrum of getting a true 1/2 salad, “starving” for an hour to have a chance at a larger one, or ruining my appetite by snacking between meals.

In the end I usually end up going early (pre 11:30), ordering my fixings one at a time (for some reason this always yields a large TS than saying “I want everything”), and filling my pockets with the free wheat crackers. Either way, it is always an enjoyable experience and something to look forward to every week.

Ciao

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