Army’s First Campus-Style Dining Venue Ushers in ‘Freedom Dollars’

The Army opened a new kind of dining facility at Fort Hood, Texas, this month, replacing the traditional chow hall model with something closer to a university food court. Soldiers on meal cards will spend what the Army is calling "freedom dollars" across an overhauled facility with multiple food stations, extended hours and a mobile app for ordering.

The first location, dubbed 42 Bistro after the year Fort Hood was established as Camp Hood in 1942, was scheduled for its grand opening Feb. 18. It is one of five pilot locations opening under a contract with Compass Group USA, the food services company that also manages dining for Division I athletic programs at the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University.

"Our soldiers are going to get fed by the same people that do the cooking and the feeding for the University of Alabama athletic department," said Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, commanding general of Army Materiel Command, in an article on army.mil. "We listened to our soldiers, and we want to make this better for them. We have to."

How Freedom Dollars Work

Under the current system, soldiers on the Essential Station Messing program swipe their meal card and receive a set tray of food. The new system prices each item individually, and soldiers spend from a daily entitlement loaded onto their Common Access Card.

Compass Group developed the Freedom Dollars program to convert the value of breakfast, lunch and dinner entitlements into a flexible daily budget. When a meal-card holder enters 42 Bistro for breakfast, that meal's entitlement is loaded. Whatever is not spent rolls into the lunch window, and anything left from lunch rolls into dinner. Soldiers can also pull forward their lunch or dinner entitlements at breakfast for grab-and-go meals. Unused dollars do not carry over to the next day.

Read More: 2026 Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) Rates

According to Stars and Stripes, soldiers will have $39 per day to work with, broken down as $9.57 for breakfast, $15.86 for lunch and $13.57 for dinner. Soldiers who exceed their daily entitlement can pay the difference out of pocket. All other patrons, including soldiers on Basic Allowance for Subsistence, pay a la carte.

Unit S-1 sections must ensure soldiers' CACs are updated with Meal Entitlement Code 09 for the system to work properly. "Coding of the cards is absolutely critical to ensure soldiers on meal entitlements have a seamless experience," said Rick Bennett, AMC senior logistics management specialist.

What 42 Bistro Offers

The facility replaces Fort Hood's former Black Jack Dining Facility and features seven food stations with more than 3,000 recipes, ranging from a grill and made-to-order sub shop to a globally inspired main line, pizza station, salad bar and grab-and-go options aligned with Army Holistic Health and Fitness standards. A food truck called Street Eats brings menu items to different locations across the garrison, and a Trade Craft Coffee Bar serves locally sourced coffee from Veteran Roasters along with smoothies and acai bowls.

The bistro operates seven days a week from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., roughly triple the hours of a traditional dining facility and without closures between meals. Each campus-style venue is required by contract to have an executive chef and a registered dietitian on staff.

Soldiers can place orders through Compass Group's mobile app for pickup or delivery. A separate feedback app called Voice of the Customer allows soldiers to flag concerns in real time, and that data will be combined with insights from the My Army Post app to shape future decisions.

How the Contract Works

The Army contracted Compass Group USA to operate the new dining venues, securing several waivers from standard requirements. Stars and Stripes reported that Compass Group was exempted from purchasing food through the Defense Logistics Agency, allowing the company to leverage its own roughly $30 billion in annual food purchasing power compared to DLA's $3 billion. The Army also waived processing standards deemed overly restrictive, such as requiring facilities to chop lettuce by hand rather than use prewashed bagged product.

Where It Is Expanding

Fort Hood is the first of five planned pilot locations. AMC spokesperson Kim Hanson told Military Times that Fort Carson, Colorado, is expected to open in March or April, followed by Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Drum, New York this summer, with Fort Stewart, Georgia, anticipated in 2027. The Army intends to expand to roughly 10 additional bases depending on feedback, with locations in Alaska, Hawaii and Europe under consideration.

Task & Purpose reported that senior base commanders will have the authority to decide whether their specific dining venue sells beer and wine.

Why the Army Is Doing This

The overhaul is part of a broader effort to address long-running complaints about Army dining facilities. A 2024 Military.com investigation found that of the $225 million deducted from soldiers' paychecks to fund dining operations, more than $151 million was redirected into general Army funds and never reached dining facilities. Army Times has also reported on the service's ongoing difficulty recruiting enough military cooks, making the shift to contracted civilian operators a practical necessity.

Mohan called the effort a three-year journey to cut through bureaucracy. "Fueling our soldiers — it's so important to the Army that we cannot get dragged down by the bureaucracy."

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