This year, Studentenwerk Leipzig is celebrating its 100th anniversary. At the beginning of the winter semester, from October 18 to 22, an anniversary week will be held in all Mensas.
To mark the anniversary week, each facility will offer a special dish, a Mensa classic, every day from 18 October to 22.
"Of course, we didn't want to offer dishes from the beginnings 100 years ago, otherwise we might have offered only semolina soup or mashed potatoes with sauerkraut,” says Uwe Kubaile, head of the department of Mensas and cafeterias/central procurement at Studentenwerk Leipzig. “The anniversary dishes represent a cross-section of the Mensa classics of the past decades."
On Monday, for example, the Mensa An den Tierkliniken offers a vegetarian cucumber stew with soya mince. On the same day, the Mensa am Park will be serving curry sausage with cucumber salad and French fries – one of the cafeteria classics per se. On Wednesday, the Mensa Peterssteinweg is reminiscent of long-gone Mensa times, offering meat loaf (Falscher Hase) and boiled potatoes. On Wednesday, guests of all facilities will receive a free sweet surprise with their meal – while supplies last.
A thank you to the guests
"Since the beginning of October, all ten Mensas and cafeterias of Studentenwerk Leipzig have been open again for on-site consumption of food and beverages. We are pleased that we have now been able to expand our services with the students starting to attend the universities again," explains Dr. Andrea Diekhof, Managing Director of Studentenwerk Leipzig. “However, we are also aware that the restrictions due to hygiene requirements demand a lot from our guests. There are fewer seats, although our dining halls were already overcrowded at peak times before Covid. And we have fewer staff at the moment. As a result, we had to limit the variety of offerings and can only keep our largest facility, the Mensa am Park, open until 2 pm. The anniversary week is therefore not only a thank you to our guests for their many years of loyalty, but also for enduring the currently more difficult conditions."
Given the current hygiene requirements, the seating capacity of the dining halls of Studentenwerk Leipzig is at present about 60 percent. For the time being, the distance of 1.50 meters has to be kept only to unknown third persons. Groups of Mensa users who know each other are allowed to sit closer together. "In order to minimize waiting times and to serve as many guests as possible, we ask all guests to make their stay in our dining rooms as short as possible. Also, give guests following you a chance to be seated. As an alternative to eating on site, we will continue to offer take-away meals," explains Kubaile.
Exhibition on 100 years of history touring the Mensas
During the anniversary week, Studentenwerk Leipzig is also launching a touring exhibition on its own history. "The vividly and richly illustrated large-format information boards tell the story of 100 years of social support for students at Leipzig as a place to study – and that under maximum hygiene conditions," Diekhof is pleased to say. In order to meet the requirements, the exhibition was unceremoniously moved from Mensa am Park to the outside. The information boards along the glass façade can be viewed for the next two weeks while walking along Universitätsstraße. After that, other Studentenwerk dining halls will follow at weekly intervals.
