Brenham High School Receives a Modern Glow-Up

When Kasandra Davis started her job as child nutrition director at Brenham Independent School District, a rural community in east-central Texas, she saw plenty of room for improvement when it came to the district’s aging foodservice facilities—particularly at its 1,500-student high school.

Prior to renovations, some of the lines didn’t have a milk box, so staffers used drink holders with ice. Brown laminate panels on the front of the serving counters looked outdated.

“Brenham High School is a closed campus, so the kids couldn’t go off-campus, yet we were only seating about 500 students a day,” Davis says. “I thought, where are those 1,000 students unaccounted for and how can we raise our participation?”

The school’s serving lines from the 1990s were looking worse for wear. “They had this ugly brown laminate panel on the front and some of the sneeze guards were broken,” she says. “Because the lines were so short, we didn’t have a space for our a la carte (items), so our chip rack was on the other side of the cashier, and for beverages we only had a mini-fridge with three small shelves that we were constantly refilling, and the kids couldn’t even see inside of it. Some of the lines didn’t even have a milk box, so we just used drink holders with ice.”

The cafeteria itself suffered from a disjointed layout that had proved unappealing for students and inefficient for staff. “We had two serving lines behind a wall, so it was a very closed concept with no way for the students to see what was being served,” she says. Two additional lines were positioned in the middle of the cafeteria, further away from the kitchen. “We would start lunch having stocked lines there, but if we ran out, we’d have to send someone to the kitchen to tell them we needed more, then wait for them to push it out during service with students still walking around.”

While Davis watched other Texas school districts buy bonds to fund new additions, she knew that wasn’t realistic for Brenham. “We were the first public school district in Texas, so there is a lot of pride for our community,” she says. “However, we are a very small community of mostly retirees and we don’t pass a lot of bonds, and we are not bringing in new families that are growing the area.” What she did have, however, was excess funds that had accumulated post-pandemic to invest in a renovation.

Shelving on the serving counters make use of vertical space so staffers don’t have to restock as often. Plus, built-in chip racks allow students to self-serve.

Hoping to replace aging equipment and rework the dysfunctional layout in one fell swoop, Davis looked to Mod-U-Serve, a Houston-based foodservice equipment manufacturer specializing in custom designs for school remodels. Davis had previously purchased a Mod-U-Serve line for her district’s pre-K building. “I had a chance to visit Mod-U-Serve and I saw (that equipment) being manufactured, and their lines have always been so pretty and high-quality,” she says.

By reclaiming an adjacent room that was once part of the kitchen but had recently been used for in-school suspension, they were able to knock down walls and make space for an open-concept servery with two U-shaped serving lines. Construction took place over the summer in 2025 and the renovated facility made its debut for the start of the 2025-2026 school year. “Now everything is out in the open and the lines just look beautiful,” Davis says. “We went with a tile front in an ombre from our school color, green, to white, and it has such an elevated look with the LED lights that make it shine. We also chose a stone tray slide.”

The serving counters now feature a tile front in the school’s colors.

Each line starts with a merchandiser to display drinks, entree salads, and grab-and-go cold items like prepackaged sandwiches. “Then next, the lines have five waterless hot wells and then a dual-tier hot/cold serving counter so they can be a frost top or warmed,” she says. “Because we were able to do the double tier, we can hold more food on the lines and don’t have to restock as often.” One line features a rotating build-your-own menu (such as nachos, burritos or tacos) while the other line offers burgers, pizza and chicken sandwiches or tenders. Chip racks built into the serving lines allow students to easily see and select what they want.

Davis has seen breakfast participation increase by 7.3% and lunch increase by 13%. Though part of the increase can be attributed to the district’s switch to the Community Eligibility Provision (all students can eat free, whether or not they qualify for free or reduced meals), Davis says the enthusiastic reaction from both students and staff goes to show that the effort was worthwhile. “We really transformed this area and everyone was really appreciative of that. It looks like such a modern space now,” Davis says. She hopes to continue to partner with Mod-U-Serve in the future. “Many of our campuses are older and outdated, so I would like to continue this trend with our other schools.”

To learn more, visit the Mod-U-Serve website.