Kent State Dining Services hosted its annual Oktoberfest celebration in the Eastway Café yesterday to create cultural awareness.

The festivity featured German food such as bratwurst, spatzle and rotisserie chicken. Eastway Center was filled with the smell of grilled meats and the sound of authentic German music.

“The food was actually pretty good,” said junior pharmacy major Paul Song. “My favorite was the cream puffs.”

Student Marketing Manager Zane Powell said the event is put on for students to experience a different kind of culture and cuisine.

“Though it may not be 100 percent authentic, we still want students to have the experience and taste food from this culture,” he said.

Powell said the Dining Services’ marketing department organized the event, including decorations, suggested menus and entertainment. Marketing Associate Nick Michel emceed activities like the chicken dance and cream puff eating contest.

Students won prizes like a yodeling teddy bear and lederhosen for participating in contests. Free Dining Services T-shirts were also handed out for completing surveys.

“We want students to learn about culture in a fun, laid back environment,” Michel said.

Michel said Kay Kagarise, a Dining Services employee, is from Germany and proposed the menu and served as head cook for the event.

Some students said they did not know about the event beforehand. Junior psychology major Sophia Buckson-Murphy, who works for Campus Environment Operations, cleans Eastway lounge three to five days a week. She said it was not busier than a typical Wednesday night.

“My coworker said they did a bad job of advertising,” she said. “I didn’t even know about it until I got here today.”

Senior English major Zach Kline said not enough advertising is done for weekly events.

“I’ve been here for five years, and I never know what’s going on,” he said. “I’ll see like one poster here in Eastway but nowhere else on campus.”

Michel said marketing for the event was done on campus and Facebook.

“We have surveys going around asking students if they were aware of the event,” he said. “We’ll kind of gage from that.”

Contact Kyle McCallum at [email protected].