Soldiers select their taco toppings out of gleaming, blue Le Creuset cookware at 42 Bistro, the Army’s first privately run dining facility, at Fort Hood, Texas, on Feb. 12, 2026. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
The Army will expand its privatization of dining facilities to six more bases, according to a request for proposals released Monday. It came just weeks after the first privately run facility served its first meal at Fort Hood in Texas and held true to Army officials’ words that they intended to move quickly to grow this initiative.
The new proposal asks companies to submit plans to privatize one dining facility each at Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Irwin, Calif.; Fort Polk, La.; Fort Riley, Kan.; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Plans are due June 12.
The Army in August selected Compass Group USA to operate facilities at Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; and Fort Hood. Fort Hood’s facility held a grand opening Feb. 18, and the others are expected to open this year.
It is all part of the Army’s ongoing effort to re-create dining facilities because soldiers choose them less often. Bringing in an outside company is seen as a way to offer more options with less strain on cooks, which the Army has been enlisting fewer of each year.
The facilities, which are inspired by dining operations on large college campuses, are meant to focus on soldiers who live in barracks and receive a meal entitlement of $39 a day. However, the Army only pays the contractor for meal entitlements redeemed, so there is an incentive to bring in additional customers who pay out-of-pocket for meals.
One difference between the new proposal and the first that went to Compass Group is the ability for soldiers to reach backward and forward across 72 hours to use meal entitlements. Right now at Fort Hood, soldiers can use $39 a day split between three meals. They can pull from other meals of that day, but anything not used is lost.
The new proposal indicates that soldiers could have the ability to reach back to missed meals or purchase with entitlements in advance, which could help soldiers buy premade meals in bulk — something they can do by filling out paperwork at a traditional dining facility.
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer spoke in October about the speed at which officials wanted to get privately run facilities open for soldiers.
“We’re going to learn with these first five pilots. We’re going to learn for all the services,” he said. “We have some really good ideas about how far we can go with this. … We’ve got to learn fast, and then we’ve got to take what we learn, and we have to implement it quicker.”
Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, commander of Army Materiel Command, said last month during a call with reporters the new request for proposals would consider lessons learned from the initial run “to get the best product out there.”
He also said this effort could not wait.
“When young men and women join the Army, there is an expectation to their families that we’re going to treat them well and we’re going to look after them,” Mohan said in a statement Tuesday. “This is a critical part of it. We owe it to our soldiers and their families to get this right.”
The first two weeks of dining at Fort Hood’s 42 Bistro have generated positive feedback, though there have been some issues with wait times for food and congestion in the ordering and pickup area because it has been so popular, said Robert Evans, founder of Hots & Cots, a website and smartphone application where service members can rate their food and lodging.
The bistro has seen an average 1,950 customers a day since opening, said Col. Kamil Sztalkoper, spokesman for III Corps and Fort Hood. The highest count in a day was 2,500.
Roughly 8,000 soldiers have meal entitlements at the base, and before this facility was privatized, it saw on average about 1,000 customers a day, Sztalkoper said.
“Future contracts should also consider meal completion time as a measurable benchmark of the time [it takes] a soldier entering the facility to get food in hand. If that window consistently exceeds 30 minutes during peak periods, you’re consuming half a soldier’s meal period before they’ve taken a bite,” Evans said.
During a soft opening of the facility, Donna Turner, vice president of government engagement and sales for Compass Group, said that wait times could be longer than normal as staff and soldiers learn the new facility.
“I believe that the speed of service is one of those things that will change as we evolve the model,” she said.
The bistro’s online ordering system has also been limited or down much of the past two weeks, Evans said.
“When that system is consistently underperforming, it raises questions about whether the contract’s deliverables are being met and what accountability looks like when they aren’t,” he said. “To be clear — we want this to succeed. The food is good, the concept is a genuine upgrade and the alternative at many installations is well documented. ... If this model is going to scale Army-wide, the lessons from Fort Hood need to be learned now, not after the next contract is awarded.”
The new contract proposal includes a five-year base period with five one-year extension options, which is what the previous contract offered.
Compass Group will open its next facility for the Army at Fort Carson this spring.
