Gastronomy

More than just Cafeteria!

We are happy to be there for you. The opening hours vary for the individual dining halls and cafés according to the needs and customer demand. You can find the opening hours on the location pages of the cafeterias and cafés.

During the semester break, when no one is there, we sometimes take a break. This will be announced in time on the homepage, the menus and via notices.
 

Children up to the age of 12 can eat with us free of charge upon presentation of their YoungsterCard. The prerequisite for the children's plate is that the parents are enrolled students at the universities we serve.

We provide high chairs for children in the dining halls and there is a play corner in the Campus dining hall. All desserts and cakes are specially produced without alcohol, so that even the little ones can snack.

All Studierendenwerk establishments, with the exception of the cafeteria Stellingen and cafeteria Geomatikum, are easily accessible for wheelchair users. The establishments are barrier-free. We offer an escort service from the serving counter to your table in all cafeterias and cafés upon request. Please ask the staff at the counter for more information.

All guests are welcome here. You can eat in our dining halls and cafés at any time.

The distribution and display of information in the refectories, cafés and café stores of the Studierendenwerk Hamburg is generally subject to approval. We offer the various student committees a platform to pass on information to the students in the Hamburg university area. You will receive a corresponding distribution card from your AStA. The distribution/display of commercial advertising is expressly prohibited without permission. If you are not sure whether you are allowed to distribute the information, please send us an e-Mail. 

We offer vegan meals in all dining halls. The vegan meals are marked with symbols on the menus. 
In the cafeterias Überseering, Stellingen and HCU a vegan meal is offered daily.

Our portion sizes are fixed and follow the recommendations of the German Nutrition Society. In order to avoid surpluses and a lot of food waste, we are keen to serve appropriate portions. However, your needs and especially your hunger are different and we do our best to fill you up. Therefore, a larger portion of the side dishes is always possible directly when the food is served. Just let us know that you want a little more. However, double portions must be paid for.

The offer of the menu is planned and published several weeks in advance based on the experience of the dining hall managers. Now, the daily offer depends on many factors, such as the weather situation, staffing, adversity of supply and finally the strongly fluctuating demand of the customers. In addition, in order to avoid unnecessary food waste, we do not produce so much in stock. Therefore, there may be changes in the menu, which unfortunately can not always be changed promptly on the notices and the homepage in the daily business. But if a dish is sold out, there is always a delicious alternative.

In university catering operations, we use products that contain additives for a variety of reasons. We cook up to 21,000 portions in our dining halls every day. Due to the high production volumes, we cannot always do without products containing additives.

Food additives have a bad image. More than ever, people want pure nature. However, it is impossible to imagine our products without additives. They have been used since time immemorial and have become increasingly necessary due to the advancing mechanization of production processes. Food additives are used to achieve a certain, mostly technological effect:

• to extend shelf life
• to improve sensory properties and consistency.
• to facilitate production.
• to ensure consistent quality.

They may only be used if they are harmless to health, do not deceive the consumer and are technologically necessary.

Our goal is to use as few products with additives as possible. When selecting new articles, we prefer label-free products.

In all cafeterias and cafés, we offer Fairtrade tea, coffee and coffee specialties, drinking chocolate and various cold drinks. In addition, our bananas bear the Fairtrade seal. The products bearing the Fairtrade seal have been grown according to criteria of social, economic and ecological sustainability. 

As a matter of principle, we do not use any products that have to be labeled for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) according to EU law. Our suppliers are required to sign a guarantee that no GMOs are supplied to Studierendenwerk.

The flood of paper cups is also a thorn in our side and we would like to see less paper cups being used. We can't do without the cups completely, however, because we want to continue to make it possible for you to enjoy your coffee on the go. As an incentive to use fewer cups, we have introduced a discount of 10 cents for using your own cup and a price of 20 cents for the paper cup.

First of all, we do our best to ensure that we produce few food leftovers. Therefore, we try to calculate the quantities already in purchasing and demand planning so that nothing is left over. Fresh produce is delivered every day, processed on a daily basis and sold to you immediately. The supply is produced as close to the time as possible so that we do not produce large surpluses. Open food that has been in the serving area is not allowed back to the guest for food law reasons. Our leftover food is picked up by a food waste provider who recycles it.

In accordance with the Food Information Regulation (LMIV), we label the additives that require labeling and the 14 main allergens. The additives are labeled with numbers and the allergens with letter abbreviations on the menu, the notices and price tags. You will find a legend directly under the menu or as a notice in the cafeterias and cafés.

Possible traces, i.e. unintentional contamination of a dish with allergens, are unfortunately unavoidable in our operations and therefore we can unfortunately not guarantee that the dishes are completely free of traces of a particular ingredient. This is especially true for gluten. For this reason, we always refer to the fact that our offer may contain traces of allergens and do not offer special allergy-free products.

In addition to the labeling of allergens and additives, we use symbols for your better orientation, for example, to mark special offers, the vegan food or the types of meat. 

Here you can find a list of the symbols used.

If you have a question, you can always contact the managers and staff in the cafeterias and cafés directly on site, who will be happy to help you with words and deeds. Furthermore, you can send an e-Mail to the administration of the university catering.