Imagine the freshest food prepared to order right in front of you as you converse with the chef about your sauce preferences. A five-star restaurant in New York, San Francisco or Hong Kong? Close. But wait. Imagine, further, your choice of five or six such restaurants, five or six kinds of meals, all within one bright, light, wood, brick, slate-and-ceramic contemporary space. With fresh flowers on the tables. Movenpick MarchŽ, the marketplace eatery in Toronto and Montreal?

Close. But even better. It's the new, award-winning Robert Purcell Marketplace Eatery, run by Cornell University Dining, in the newly renovated Robert Purcell Community Center on the university's North Campus. It represents a whole new vision and direction for campus food services and may signal changes for Cornell Dining elsewhere on campus, said Nadeem E. Siddiqui, the new director of Cornell Dining.

"We are extremely pleased about Robert Purcell," Siddiqui said. "It is the future of Cornell Dining. Our staff has done a remarkable job in presenting the marketplace concept to our students, who are very pleased with the service and quality. Robert Purcell has given us an opportunity to showcase Cornell Dining."

The Marketplace Eatery opened Aug. 20, just 88 days after it was closed for renovation. The innovative eatery recently was awarded Food Management magazine's annual "Best of Show" award for its unique concept and is featured in the magazine's November issue. A virtual tour of the Marketplace is available through a link under Dining at http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu/.

"The marketplace concept is very nontraditional in the industry and is particularly innovative for college campuses," said Paula Amols, Cornell Dining training coordinator. And while several other campuses offer marketplace eateries, Cornell is one of the very few that offers all-you-can-eat dining at the Marketplace.

A $4.5 million renovation turned the old Robert Purcell dining hall, which used to provide traditional dining hall fare, into the Marketplace Eatery. Now it offers six separate food preparation and service areas, as well as bread and cereal stations, salad bars, dessert tables and an ice cream bar complete with all the sundae fixings anyone could desire. Much of the food now is prepared at the stations, in view of the customers.

A Mongolian grill offers a variety of fresh ingredients that the customer chooses, then gives to the cooks to heat on the high-temperature grill. Meat or seafood can be added and one of the three sauces for cooking. Steamed rice is available self-serve from large containers. The grill also doubles as an omelet bar for Sunday brunch. During the first Sunday brunch more than 500 omelets were made to order.

Located on the third floor of Robert Purcell, the eatery is part of a $12.5 million renovation that has turned the building into a state-of-the-art community center primarily for Cornell freshmen, although the building and eatery are open to all. The renovation was part of the overall residential initiative established by President Hunter Rawlings in October 1997, which calls for construction of two new residence halls on North Campus, where all freshmen will be housed by fall 2001. As of this fall, 61 percent of freshmen are housed on North Campus.

The marketplace dining concept was chosen after careful research, including visits to some four-star restaurants, and partly in response to the news that North Campus will become home to all university freshmen, said Scott Lewis, general manager of the Marketplace. Lewis was part of the team that researched the marketplace concept and oversaw the final planning and design for the new eatery.

"We tried to create a new atmosphere for freshmen. We know that students coming to Cornell today are not looking for traditional cafeteria fair. Their tastes are more sophisticated. They are used to fine dining and restaurant fare, and we need to be competitive with that," Lewis said.

The Marketplace is booming, said Stephen O'Brien, executive chef. It's serving more meals than ever before -- approximately 4,000 customers a day and 2,000 at dinner. The eatery serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, with hours from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8:30 p.m. All meals are all-you-can eat, at $5 for breakfast, $7.50 for lunch and $8.75 for dinner.

Students can use any of the five meal plans offered by Cornell Dining to eat at the Marketplace. Unlike many schools, meal plans are not mandatory at Cornell, so they are customer driven, Amols said. And students are responding. More than 7,300 students are now on a meal plan.

And the self-serve, all-you-can-eat approach actually has lowered food costs, O'Brien said. Customers take only what they want and think they can eat. "And they know they can always go back," he said.

Both food service workers and their customers, especially students, love the new eatery, particularly the interaction between the two, O'Brien said.

"We've noticed a huge increase in employee morale," O'Brien said. "In the past, if a student said something nice about the food, the employees never heard it. Now they hear it all the time. That has them very pumped up, and it reflects in the customer service, which in turn reflects in the way the students respond."

Lewis, too, said he's seen a whole new level of enthusiasm among staff members. "It's appealing to their culinary interests," he said. "They're not just coming to work to make a gravy. They're more interested. And it's amazing to see the staff flow as a team."

As a hostess at the Robert Purcell dining room for the past 12 years, Jody Whitted is one of those highly enthusiastic staff members. "I was awestruck," Whitted said about the renovation. "I love it. It's upbeat. The students love it, and I love watching the students respond."

And, she, too, sees a big difference in the staff. "They communicate. They talk more together. There's more teamwork. They're happier and bouncier. They're more upbeat because the students get to talk to them about it."

And what the students are saying is very positive. David Dickey is a junior transfer student who lives off campus but drives across campus to the Marketplace for lunch every day, usually bringing a friend. Dickey said he heard from the grapevine that the new eatery was a great place to eat.

"Now I come every day because it has great food, a great selection and it's quiet. And," he added, "you should give credit É to the people who work here. They're very friendly and very professional."

Freshman Michelle Carley, who lives on North Campus, said she eats almost all her meals at the Marketplace, only partly because it's convenient. She said her parents are relieved that they don't have to worry about her eating well, and the food is first-rate.

"It's really good. It's just really good. My family was surprised it was so good. Everyone over here loves it."