First there were T-shirts. Then there was a Facebook.com group with more than 125 members. Now students from all areas of campus recognize the name Stir-Fry Steve.
With chestnut-colored hair tightly pulled into a ponytail, Steve Lark serves more than made-to-order stir-fry Monday through Saturday at the 1835 Hinman dining hall. For the past six years, Lark has run one of the most popular dining stations on campus. Some students wait in line up to half an hour as Lark sings, tells jokes and tosses food from one frying pan to the next.
“I got to be there at the beginning of the magic,” Beth Gianfrancisco, SESP ’05, said in an e-mail. “He always had a smile on his face and would ask how my day was. I had stir fry almost every single night it was available, for years.”
Flipping vegetables with a snap of the wrist, Lark estimated he serves over 75 students nightly. When he began working at 1835 Hinman, he shared a serving area. Now he has his own stir-fry station with colorful sauces and vegetables.
Life for the 28-year-old was not always so vibrant.
“I went to a bad school,” Lark said, “and what happened was I used to always be fighting with people. It wasn’t really my fault. I was just in a bad location – like people shooting at you. It was just like a headache to go to school, you know?”
Lark has held two jobs at a time since leaving Richards Vocational High School on the South Side of Chicago during his freshman year. The high school used to be an all-girls school but became co-ed the year he started. Lark was one of six boys among 300 girls.
Lark plans to get his GED and either attend culinary school or go into auto mechanics. Meanwhile, he works with food more than 14 hours per day between Evanston Hospital and 1835 Hinman. He also is getting married in July.
“I didn’t know weddings were so much,” Lark said, smiling. “If I knew it was this much planning, I would’ve planned it before I proposed.”
He sunk his head in his arms on the dining hall table and pretended to sob. Then he looked up and shook his head with a chuckle.
Hinman extended operating hours on weekdays to 7:30 p.m. Winter Quarter. With a typical day running from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m., Lark occasionally runs low on energy. One student recently asked Lark if he was really “Stir-Fry Steve” because he didn’t seem himself.
“The next day I tried to get a little perky but I don’t know,” Lark said laughing. “Am I becoming a grumpy old man?”
The members of the “1835 Hinman Stir-fry Steve Lovers” Facebook group don’t think so. Medill sophomore Matt Deutschman founded the group in fall 2004. He said he walked from Elder Hall to 1835 Hinman at least three times a week to have stir-fry from Steve.
“I thought he deserved a Facebook group to honor him,” Deutschman said. “He knows everyone personally.”
When asked about the Facebook group and “Stir-Fry Steve” T-shirts, Lark gave a wide grin.
“That is the reason I stick around, because of the students and stuff,” he said. “They make you feel like you are wanted here.”
Reach Sarah Tompkins at [email protected].
