Alan Skirboll began his family business 27 years ago with salads named “Jim’s Swim” and “Eve’s… Alan Skirboll began his family business 27 years ago with salads named “Jim’s Swim” and “Eve’s First Years,” after two of his four children.

But now, after a quarter of a century of food service on Pitt’s campus, the Second Plate in Posvar Hall is being asked by Pitt to clear out by the end of April and make way for an Einstein Bros. Bagels.

Pitt explained to Skirboll last April that it did not wish to renew the Second Plate’s contract. Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill explained that the reason for this decision is that “the university wants to provide better service to students, faculty and staff.”

Hill said better service includes the option of dining dollar use and better food variety.

According to Skirboll, Second Plate had wanted to get a dining dollar contract but couldn’t because the option is exclusive with Sodexho, which operates most of Pitt’s dining services. The Einstein Bros will be operated by Sodexho and so will be able to offer the dining dollar option.

Skirboll started his family’s food service company, The Salad Co. Catering, 30 years ago with an idea to open a yogurt shop in Oakland, thinking it would be a good business investment.

After some research in the area he decided that a yogurt shop wouldn’t do well in the area and chose instead to open one of the first singularly vegetarian salad and soup restaurants in the country.

“We were doing really well in the salad business,” said Skirboll, “the salad and soup idea really captured the imagination of the public.”

Skirboll said the restaurant was really a family effort. His wife was instrumental in the creative efforts such as menu design, and many of the salad names were named after events that happened in his children’s lives. Now his son Jim and daughter Dorian help to run Second Plate.

The reason Skirboll thinks Pitt approached them to open a campus food service, originally, was their “unique way of doing foods.” There is no heavy duty cooking and they don’t require any exhaust or drainage systems, something Posvar Hall is not equipped with.

Today, Skirboll doesn’t offer his familial titled salads, “we’ve backed into doing more traditional things, however, to maintain our sanity we sell a smaller version of our unique salads,” he said.

Most of the food is prepared at its off-campus kitchen and is driven in each morning.

“We’ve learned to bring the food in that will last us for the day,” explained Skirboll who doesn’t keep a large refrigerator and has very little onsite storage space.

Most of the employees at Second Plate are students and many have been working there for many years. Skirboll said he didn’t know if any of them would be hired to work for the new food service most likely opening next fall.

After 25 years with Pitt, Skirboll said he “considered it actually an honor to be a part of that [university] atmosphere.”

“This is a facility with a continuance of good food, [it is] well-staffed, and we maintain a good attitude with both employees and customers,” Skirboll said.

That good attitude has helped Skirboll and his son build up a relationship with many of their customers during the years.

“We still have customers that eat here from our days on Atwood Street,” said Skirboll, who also believes that many of the professors who eat at Second Plate everyday will miss the familiar faces, many of which have been there since the day the food service opened.

“We didn’t want to tell anyone because it’s tough to run a business when people know you’re closing,” Jim said, “things have to change for, hopefully, the better.”