A Pressing Matter: Future of Hot Sandwiches at Gladfelter
Clara Shirley | September 16, 2025
Drawn by Clara Shirley.
When navigating the dining options at Gladfelter, the main cafeteria at Warren Wilson College (WWC), many students gravitate towards the panini press to fulfill their cravings for grilled sandwiches, quesadillas and experimental amalgamations. When students returned to campus this year, however, they found that their beloved panini press was nowhere in sight.
While temporary shutdowns of the panini press have been consistent throughout previous years at WWC, the total removal of it is rare. The disappearance of the panini press over the summer has sparked outrage among the student body.
Nolan Lynch, a junior at WWC, expressed a common sentiment among returning students this year.
“I think that the removal of the panini press is a huge scandal and an affront to student rights,” Lynch said.
Students have long been aware of the apparent issues surrounding the communal use of the panini press. A regular accompaniment to the press last year was a small sign that read “temporarily shut down for inappropriate use.” Toby Freel, a senior at WWC, raised the issue of a lack of clear communication between Gladfelter staff and students.
“What keeps happening to make them take it away from us?” Freel said. “That's what I want to know. I feel like most people use it appropriately.”
The lack of clear and direct reasons concerning the shutdown of the panini press has led to speculation among the student body, including the development of topical new theories.
“I have a theory that they just get tired of cleaning it, so they say that it's broken or misused, like the McDonald's ice cream machine,” Freel said. “Isn't McDonald's getting sued for that? We should sue Gladfelter.”
Rumors that arose last year concerning the myriad removals of the panini press have continued circulating this semester as students attempt to draw conclusions as to the reasons for removing their means for creative food expression so early in the year. Sarah House, a sophomore at WWC working on Gladfelter’s Dining Crew, highlighted the broader significance of some of these rumors.
“I have heard through a co-worker that there was a rumor posted on the gossip app Yik Yak that said someone put their [phallus] in [the panini press],” House said. “While there is no evidence nor likelihood of that being true, we believe that comment is a hyperbole speaking to the rampant and widespread misuse of Gladfelter’s panini press. It's tragic for our toasted sandwich lovers at WWC.”
“I heard somebody tried to cook raw meat on it, and I heard somebody was putting chips and soda on it,” Freel said. “None of this has been verified, so it could totally all just be fake, but I want to know why somebody was putting chips and soda on the panini press.”
Kat Laufenberg, Dining Crew supervisor and WWC alum, acknowledged the longstanding use of the panini press on campus, as well as the recent increase in personal food experiments.
“That panini press might even be the one from when I was a student, and I graduated in 2013,” Laufenberg said. “So, yeah, she's seen a lot. [Removing or shutting down the panini press] does seem to be more common now, I'm not quite sure where all the creativity is coming from.”
Laufenberg confirmed the infamous “chips and soda” rumor to be true, alongside several other non-panini food incidents, and noted that with the high traffic the panini press was seeing, it was sometimes difficult to pin down what exactly had gone in by the end of the night.
“What that ends up causing is just a rash of issues on the back end of dealing with the panini press,” Laufenberg said. “Out of everything we have out front … the panini press unfortunately ends up suffering from the tragedy of the commons.”
Laufenberg added that a big issue the panini press faced was the lack of a refuse tray, as it disappeared sometime during the previous year. In addition, the dearth of funding for new parts or more accessible equipment has been yet another hurdle in the struggle for accessible hot sandwiches.
“The school owns all this equipment,” Laufenberg said. “This isn't Sodexo’s equipment. When it comes to something needing to be replaced or fixed, we have to ask very nicely. We go with our hats in our hands.”
Laufenberg plans to partner with the Blacksmithing Crew to create a new refuse tray, as the missing part is likely not a priority among the top dogs at WWC.
“When it comes to funding, things like that just end up at the bottom of the pile,” Laufenberg said.
The financial choices of WWC are always felt by the community, whether that be department cuts or dining equipment delays. Hungry students have had much to grieve since the loss of the panini press, including the innovative dinners they crafted to survive the dining hall’s classic meals.
“If the dinner was bad, I'd lump everything together in a tortilla and then make it a burrito in the panini press,” Lynch said.
“I think a cheese quesadilla to go with my taco salad would just make my Saturday,” Freel said.
“I made a grilled cheese once at the beginning of last year, and oh, my God, it changed my life,” House said. “But hey, we do have the more quality-controlled grilled cheeses at the Crusted Corner. I'm very happy about that.”
While the Crusted Corner is often a popular choice during lunches, it does not allow students to employ the creative values instilled in each member of the WWC community. Laufenberg, as the Dining Crew supervisor, has made efforts to champion the food-related interests of the WWC student body, but can only do so much when the panini press faces an almost Sisyphean abuse by inventive eaters on campus.
“We do love how beloved [the panini press] is, and it's beloved to our crew as well, because … it causes so much interesting chaos,” Laufenberg said. “I will say it would be very nice that people kept more of their science experiments to Morse and Witherspoon. The equipment down there is probably better suited for doing whatever someone wanted to do with potato chips and soda. I don't know what their end game was there, but, you know, absolute mad lad.”
In a hopeful turn of events for campus eaters, Laufenberg announced that Gladfelter is planning to reinstate the panini press by the end of the week. In the meantime, she emphasized that some important aspects of proper panini press use for students to keep in mind are keeping non-pressable items (such as chips, soda, and chicken breast) out of the press, staying conservative with the ingredients and oil added pre-grill, using a heartier bread and saving salad bar items for post-grill assembly.
They asked that students try to be mindful of the limits of dining hall equipment, as items such as the panini press cannot be run through the dishwasher and require rigorous hand-scrubbing, and that students return any big coffee mugs they might have.