URI Dining Services most vibrant employee
The man behind the pizza. Photo by James Singer.
Behind every meal made at URI is a personality, and in the case of Vinnie Joyce, that personality is bold and boisterous.
Joyce ‘80, a Cranston, Rhode Island native, has been an essential part of URI Dining Services since 2007.
Though he can typically be found at Pizza Xpress now, Joyce’s career contributions to Dining Services, and URI as a whole, go far beyond that. He is widely known as the face inside of the Rhody Eatz food truck seen on campus last year and was a significant contributor to the initial idea. To his dismay, the use of the food truck has been limited due to COVID-19.
Joyce is both a dining services coordinator and a manager at Ram’s Den, but he said that his job is “to make sure things get done right.”
“I have known Vinnie Joyce for my entire career at URI,” Cathleen Lannelli, food service supervisor, said in a statement. “When I started as a part-time cook’s helper at Hope Mainfare Vinnie was my manager.”
Outside of Dining Services, he has been involved in several extracurricular activities. As a lifelong and immensely talented singer, Joyce has participated in 12 different operas put on by URI’s music department.
“I always followed the URI community, basketball and sports, so it’s always been a part of my life in some way as an alumnus,” he said.
Joyce has also showcased his singing by singing the national anthem at basketball games, as well as being an eager participant in the annual Diwali celebration put on by the school’s Indian Students Association. In September 2017, he performed the Canadian national anthem at Fenway Park in Boston.
“That was pretty cool,” Joyce said. “I auditioned for this 99 Restaurant chain that had a talent contest, and the winner would sing at Fenway. So, I made the cut and I had to go to Tewksbury, [Massachusetts] to compete against 10 people.”
Joyce described the process of narrowing down his competition until only to him and one other person. Despite losing in the end, he was able to offer up his ability to sing at a Red Sox game, albeit the Canadian national anthem in Toronto.
“That was awesome because my mother is French-Canadian,” Joyce said.
Joyce also puts significant effort into being the best he can be in both his occupation and his passions. He took music classes at URI before showcasing his operatic talent and has also taken a nutrition class to gain a better understanding of how to properly feed URI’s students while keeping them as happy and healthy as can be.
He said that he took the nutrition class with the sole purpose of feeding the URI student body as well as possible. This is just one example of the reason that Joyce has devoted himself so heavily to the URI community: for the benefit of the students.
He said his favorite part of the job is simply watching people eat, and his favorite part of the school year is watching people walk the stage at graduation. Joyce was sad that the graduating class of 2020 was unable to have the full graduation experience last year due to COVID-19.
“There’s nothing better than feeding young, healthy people and then seeing them graduate,” he said. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful job. I wish I’d worked here 40 years ago.”
Between managing the Ram’s Den and his contributions to the Rhody Eatz food truck, Joyce’s contributions to URI Dining have been indispensable in feeding students. He has been central to the success of the organization, and without him, it would not be where it is today. The same can be said for Joyce himself; without Dining Services, he would not be where he is today.