Members of Congress have a lot to contend with on a daily basis: partisan bickering, protesters, reporters constantly asking questions. One thing newer members are surprised they have to deal with, however, is just how terrible the food is on the House side of the Capitol.
“You came to Congress, you’re so excited. I’m in this brand new office, it’s beautiful. I have this amazing staff,” first-term Rep. Julie Johnson told NOTUS in an interview. “And I am amazed at how terrible the food is here, given the fact that we’re the most powerful country in the world.”
For about a decade, complaints about the House food have privately and publicly flooded the halls of Congress — so much so that it has become common knowledge among reporters, staff and lawmakers that the superior grub is found in the Senate. The Senate and the House used to have the same food vendor, Restaurant Associates, until Sodexo became the House food provider in 2015.
Two House Democrats say they bring food from home because they don’t like the offerings on campus. Republican Rep. Brian Jack said he is “a big fan of the pizza,” but added that “many of my New York colleagues would probably disagree.”
GOP Rep. Riley Moore said that “the Senate’s probably got the edge on us right now, certainly, so there’s room for improvement.”
House members and staff are in the process of addressing those complaints. They are evaluating new food vendors for House facilities — which include the public cafeterias and the members-only dining room — that could replace Sodexo, the current contractor that operates all facilities in the House restaurant system, NOTUS has learned.
Rep. Joe Morelle, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, which is in charge of overseeing House restaurants alongside the office of the Chief Administrative Officer, told NOTUS that “we’ve been at this for months and months, reviewing this.”
“I would like there to be, frankly, more options for people, healthier options for people,” Morelle said. “Obviously one of the things we’re always concerned about is just quality and the cost — to make it affordable for people who work here to be able to access quality food. So yeah, we’ve talked at length about it.”
Sodexo’s initial contract ended in 2019 but has since been renewed every two years, and the current one is up at the end of this summer. It’s unclear if Sodexo applied for a renewal and the company did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Morelle said the CAO is currently evaluating applicants interested in becoming food vendors in the House. But, he added, the process is looking a little different this time around: Instead of having applicants bid to take over all House food spaces, they can bid on specific locations.
Late last year, the House put out a request for proposals to contractors interested in becoming vendors. Morelle declined to name the applicants interested but said that there were “a lot” of them.
“I think it’s fair to say that I was very much interested in having a broader array of people participate in the request for proposals process, and so talk to a number of vendors who had not previously applied or been involved,” Morelle said.
Being a food vendor in the House is also attractive to businesses: Almost every House food facility made over hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales between 2023 and 2024, according to documents provided in the House’s request for proposals. The cafeteria in the Longworth Office Building, perhaps the most popular House food spot, made over $4 million alone and the cafeteria in the Rayburn Office Building made over $800,000 between 2023 and 2024.
“The reality of it is there are so many pressing issues in the United States Congress that the food we eat does not become high on the list of things to focus on,” Johnson said. “We have all these other issues that are much more important, and certainly I agree that they’re more important. But regardless, we have a robust staff of people that work in here, we have many visitors that come to their nation’s Capitol, and that’s just part of the visitor experience and we should be able to do better.”
The CAO, which is in charge of the daily oversight of House food facilities and leading the efforts of evaluating applicants, declined to comment for this story. Contracts will be awarded to the chosen food vendors in May, with new House food services beginning officially on Aug. 1, 2025.
A spokesperson Rep. Bryan Steil, the Republican chair of the House Administration committee, said “the Committee looks forward to reviewing the CAO’s proposal for vendors in the House.”
Sodexo has received complaints since the start of its contract with the House nearly 10 years ago. During a 2016 congressional hearing, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Will Plaster, the CAO at the time, that after Sodexo became the House’s primary food vendor just months before, “there has been an explosion of complaints about both the quality of the food and the cost of the food.”
Plaster responded that Sodexo “are sincere in their efforts to effect the changes and the improvements that have been asked of them.”
Complaints continue to this day.
Last month, the CAO sent out an email saying it was “currently reviewing food service proposals for late 2025” and asking for anonymous survey responses reviewing “all food service locations,” per a copy of the email viewed by NOTUS.
One review, viewed by NOTUS, from a staffer who said they had been working in the House for almost a decade, specifically called on the CAO to “[g]et rid of Sodexo.” (The staffer’s review noted that the complaints didn’t extend to the staff in the cafeterias: “They are all great and should all be retained”).
“Getting breakfast or lunch or snack in the middle of a hectic workday should be a pleasure. But walking into the cafeterias fills me with dread because I know no matter what, the options will be the same every single day, coupled with mediocrity and high prices,” the staffer’s review said. “I am *begging* you to offer us something better and start with booting Sodexo and overhauling the main cafeterias.”
The staffer, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told NOTUS they were cautiously “encouraged” by the fact that House staff and lawmakers are evaluating food vendor applicants.
But the excitement is palpable, at the very least, among members.
During an interview for this story, Morelle hopped on one of the Capitol elevators, where he told GOP Rep. John Moolenaar, who happened to be on board, that he’s “trying to get better food in the cafeterias.”
“I’ll sign on to that!” Moolenaar responded.
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.