Since the 1970s, the South Campus Dining Hall has expanded its variety from just a handful of meal choices to dozens of options.

Decades before some students began sneaking food out of all-you-can-eat 251 North, Joe Mullineaux said he too fell to temptation as an undergraduate at this university nearly 40 years ago.

One night in the mid-1970s, guessing he would be hungry long after the campus’ four dining halls closed, Mullineaux — now the senior associate director for dining services — took the risk of breaking the university’s no tolerance policy on taking food to-go.

“I took an extra slice of roast beef and a dinner roll and I made myself a little sandwich and I wrapped it up and I put it in my parka and strolled out,” Mullineaux said. “And got caught.”

After administrators gave him two options — to either go before the university’s judicial board or clean dishes for a week — Mullineaux found himself temporarily employed in a dining hall, which alumni say have evolved nearly beyond recognition over the last 40 years.

Before the dining halls were renovated in the 1970s and students began using swipe cards for everything from mealtimes to sporting events, they gained entrance to the four all-you-can-eat locations — the South Campus Dining Hall, which was housed in LeFrak Hall before 1974, and diners at the Denton, Ellicott and Cambridge communities — with punch cards.

Mullineaux said lunch options were cold-cuts, casserole, grilled cheese or a cheeseburger — “a very overcooked patty that was sitting on the steam table line” ladled with cheese sauce.

Dinner had two meat options and one vegetarian dish, but “you had to be a serious vegetarian to want one,” he added. While the dining halls used to serve Coke products, they also offered 12-ounce draft beers for 5 cents on special meal nights.

“It wasn’t part of the meal plan, you had to bring your nickel,” Mullineaux said.

And although the food was decent enough to pocket — landing Mullineaux with dish duty — he said the sense of community kept him in the department.

“I actually had a good time because there were a lot of interesting people working there, so I never left,” he said.

One man, “Crazy Joe Gecgal,” amused himself by plotting the number of eggs he used while working the omelet line, keeping a graph going one semester.

“He had a line showing [the variation from week to week],” Mullineaux said.

But in those days, the dining halls could be a bleak place outside the kitchen, many said. With a salad bar consisting of lettuce, carrot and celery sticks and four low calorie dressings, many of today’s offerings would have been considered luxuries.

“I probably have some students who think I’m crazy, but I’m telling you, it’s much better selection and quality offered from my two times here in the last couple of months than it was back in 1976 and ‘77,” said alumnus Gary McCorkle.

Sophomore government and politics major Meredith Hills said she reevaluated her opinion of the dining halls after hearing how far they have come.

“I always complain about the salad bar, but I don’t know how good I have it,” she said.

However, McCorkle said the dining halls were usually a safer bet than venturing to Roy Rogers or McDonalds by foot.

“If you were really brave and bold and you wanted a real hamburger or real meals, you’d have to walk onto Route 1,” he said.

That trek was farther off the beaten path than it is today, he added. Students either took a shortcut across a creek or walked for up to half a mile around it.

However, alumni said they carry fond memories of the quirks of eating on the campus.

Although students ate with Styrofoam utensils until 1974 — Mullineaux said people believed there was bacteria on reusable silverware — a typical Sunday night in the 1960s was a sophisticated affair. Men wore a coat and tie and women wore dresses.

“It was nothing like today,” Mullineaux said.

gray@umdbk.com