NMS has provided food services for residential and retail dining on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus since the fall semester of 2007. At the time, roughly 900 resident students were dining at Creekside Eatery, and the team was managing seven retail outlets.
From the start, Scott Evers and Bruce Bryan have worked together, serving UAA in one capacity or another. In the opening years as Executive Chef, Scott led a culinary team of 40 kitchen and retail staff. Scott Evers still oversees Seawolf Dining as area operations manager for NMS K-12 and university accounts. Bruce Bryan, another face integral to Seawolf Dining, has served many roles at UAA, from retail manager to general manager. He’s currently using many years of historical knowledge to consult for Seawolf Dining as we invest in a new operations management team.
2013 brought an exciting change when NMS was selected to manage the food service contract for the brand new Alaska Airlines Center, a state-of-the-art sporting arena that opened in 2014. This contract required NMS to handle the catering, concessions and the Varsity Sports Grill restaurant.
In 2016 Creekside Eatery was redesigned with new paint, flooring, art for the walls, new seating, and a beautifully renovated servery with granite countertops and feature walls. The fresh look inside Creekside provided an exciting boost of new energy for the students and staff alike.
On November 30, 2018, a 7.1 earthquake rocked Anchorage and caused damage to UAA buildings resulting in a campus closure for five days while the cleanup and repair process began. Seawolf Dining was on the scene, with Scott Evers supporting the Incident Management Team on campus with breakfasts and boxed lunches.
By spring 2020, Seawolf Dining was serving roughly 450 residents when during spring break, the world pandemic, Covid-19 shut down dining establishments in Alaska. In a matter of weeks, the UAA campus closed as the state asked residents to “hunker down” at home. Most students returned home, and those unable to leave were supplied with to-go meals as UAA and Seawolf Dining established health mandates and serving systems.
The fall of 2022 brought a return to normalcy and improvement in enrollment and resident dining with more than 450 residents on campus. Overcoming residual challenges, Creekside Eatery resumed a more typical resident dining format. Subway is still serving up new handheld delights in the Student Union, and Kaladi Brothers Café is still providing a bright spot in the day with great coffee and ambiance.
Seawolf Dining and UAA are excited about the future, moving past unforeseeable circumstances to explore exciting new changes for the future of UAA! For a list of current NMS staff, click here.
