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Kingston, R.I. \u2013 April 17, 2026 \u2013 From the honey habanero shrimp fajitas and beef bulgogi to the rocky road brownies, the University of Rhode Island\u2019s Dining Services cooked up some exciting menu items this year thanks to two key additions to its kitchen staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The arrival of Mark Bennison, chef manager of URI\u2019s commissary bakeshop, and Benjamin Blodgett, chef manager of ops and outreach, added new variety to Dining\u2019s daily offerings, including tasty dessert treats, chef-inspired full-course meals, and exciting special events with custom themed menus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both are Johnson & Wales University graduates who joined the team in the spring of 2025 \u2013 Blodgett started in January and Bennison followed in April \u2013 with more than five decades of experience combined in culinary arts instruction, management, and hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their shared experiences in the kitchen and classroom make for an effortless rapport where the two bounce ideas off one another to create a new layer of excitement and anticipation to the daily menu items at Mainfare and Butterfield dining halls. Whether it\u2019s an elaborate flank steak with chimichurri sauce and a porchetta sandwich with grilled broccolini, or simpler comfort-food classics with a twist, like Korean friend chicken nuggets, there\u2019s something for every taste bud at URI, and Bennison and Blodgett are having fun bringing their creations to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a growing process,\u201d Benisson said. \u201cIt takes a good year to figure everything out, and we\u2019re now at that one-year mark. We just throw everything against the wall and keep working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bennison, a 1997 JWU grad, spent more than seven years as a pastry chef at the Radisson Airport Hotel in Warwick while earning his bachelor\u2019s degree in food and beverage management. In addition to planning menus for the hotel and banquet facilities, he developed the university\u2019s pastry arts practicum program. His teaching extended to the International Institute of Culinary Arts, where he led the school\u2019s two-year pastry arts program, in addition to more than 17 years as a pastry chef for Job Corps in Exeter educating students in basic culinary food preparation and presentation. Bennison also held management positions at Johansson\u2019s Bakery and Caf\u00e9 and Eastside Marketplace, bringing a unique blend of retail and higher education experience to URI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His time at Johansson\u2019s \u2013 a popular pastry shop staffed with JWU students at the downtown Providence Arcade \u2013 prepared him for what he handles daily at URI serving the more than 5,000 students on campus who have meal plans and eat at the dining halls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was a good learning experience for me because I learned how to manage large volume,\u201d Bennison said. \u201cWe made everything from fresh bread to cakes. It was a million-dollar operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While he\u2019s mainly behind the scenes with his team churning out the many popular dessert items that students have grown to love, Bennison hopes for a more interactive approach next fall where he can meet students, gather feedback, and provide a greater glimpse into the process for those interested in learning more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho wants to be in the kitchen all day long? You want to get out and see people,\u201d Bennison said. \u201cI also want to work with student organizations to develop menu items, because those groups really represent key populations of our student body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf they see our faces, it makes a difference. They know who to talk to. \u2018Can you make something this way?\u2019 or \u2018I used to have this at home.\u2019 It makes them feel comfortable to be involved in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blodget graduated JWU in 2013 and spent the last decade as an instructor in Florida and Rhode Island, including his role as a career and technical education teacher in Broward County and his most recent position as the vocational instructor of culinary arts at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As chef manager, he prepares menu rotations at the start of each semester, drawing on student feedback \u2013 mostly from Dining\u2019s large number of student workers \u2013 and trends from other universities to determine which items are a hit and which don\u2019t go over as well with students. Blodgett develops a five-week meal plan that typically cycles through three times during a normal semester while mixing in specialty dining events, including the Feast of the Northeast in March, a medley of iconic regional favorites like calamari and clam chowder, and Wicked, a special night of Emerald City vibes and menu items based on the 2024 movie remake of The Wizard of Oz<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blodgett also introduced the URI Dining Food Show in October, an interactive event where students sampled and voted on potential new menu items at Mainfare from buffalo battered potato slices and cornflake-crusted fried chicken to s\u2019mores cookies and jackfruit burgers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The menu-building process is time consuming with work on the fall 2026 slate already underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s fun to see where things fall,\u201d Blodgett said. \u201cWe look at where Halloween, for example, falls in that cycle. Do we need to tweak a few things? Are there any other major holidays? Then we take it a step further and look ahead at any changes that need to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the dining hall classics are at the top of most students\u2019 lists \u2013 \u201cOur No. 1 seller is still chicken fingers and French fries,\u201d Blodgett said \u2013 there\u2019s a campus-wide craving for international options, so Blodgett and his team are already beginning to plan ideas for new Asian, Latin American, and Native American dishes in 2026\u201327. Blodgett also likes to add new twists to existing menu items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne example is our paella night,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were serving that prior to me starting here. It was very complicated from an execution standpoint, but we reworked it, changed the rice to be a little bit more authentic, changed the seasoning to get a better vegetarian base, and then we added in the proteins on the side, so students liked it better because they can customize it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appeasing all tastes and dietary needs on a campus with more than 17,000 students is tricky, but Blodgett and Bennison welcome the challenge and look forward to building on this year\u2019s success in the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cStudents want things that are customized to what they want,\u201d Blodgett said. \u201cThey don’t want to have to compromise. They like international flavors, but they also want those creature comforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can toy the idea of an Indian style mac and cheese to add more international flavors, but you still need the go-to regular items. Part of the fun is figuring out how to balance it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ###<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Parente, director of communications and marketing in the URI Division of Student Affairs, wrote this news release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chefs Mark Bennison and Benjamin Blodgett arrived last spring and added their own unique twists to Dining’s daily offerings Kingston, R.I. \u2013 April 17, 2026 \u2013 From the honey habanero shrimp fajitas and beef bulgogi to the rocky road brownies, the University of Rhode Island\u2019s Dining Services cooked up some exciting menu items this year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[13,17],"class_list":["post-3862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-news","tag-spring-2026"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3864,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3862\/revisions\/3864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/student-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}