Elizabeth Skillern, a kindergartner at W.R. McNeill Elementary School, said Monday that the best thing about the school’s new cafeteria is that when she is sitting there, it really doesn’t feel like she’s at school.

“It feels like I am somewhere else,” she said.

For one thing, Elizabeth is not sitting in the gym, which sports murals related to The Leader in Me but has no windows.

The open, bright cafeteria, where several windows overlook the playground, is quite a change, the children said as they munched on lunch.

“I like the red and blue colors,” first-grader Cameron Obee said. “I thought the tables would be orange.”

The tables are actually the ones that had been used in the gym. Principal Kelli Brooks said the staff and the kids are “thrilled” with the new facility.

“We always had to work around our PE (physical education) schedule,” Brooks said. With the gym free from cafeteria duties, the kids will now have opportunities for indoor recess.

“Now they can run and play ball,” Brooks said.

Becky Spinks, McNeill’s cafeteria manager who has worked at the school for 17 years, said after each breakfast and lunch, the kitchen staff had to put up the tables in the gym and roll them off to the side. Now, the tables can just sit in the spacious room, and their wheels are really not needed.

Spinks said the new kitchen could be three times the size of the previous one. It is equipped with two serving lines, rather than one, a walk-in cooler, a walk-in freezer, a convection oven and a combination oven that allows food to be steamed and baked, among other processes. There is also a cold bar to hold a variety of fresh vegetables.

“I love it,” Spinks said. “I am not big on changes, but everything is new and modern.”

Missing in McNeill’s kitchen duties now will be treks to the boiler room – going outside and then inside – for the clothes dryer or the freezer.

“It’s awesome,” said Teyona Offut, who said she “does a little bit of everything” in the kitchen. “Just having enough space to prepare things, that’s a great change.”

The old kitchen will be converted into a new science lab in the school. Workers were busy Monday starting to take out the various pieces of the kitchen equipment.

The new kitchen has a huge range hood behind the serving line, and there are clear glass and metal cabinets where all types of food may be stored.

On Monday, the crew readied barbecue sandwiches, and the aroma of the sauce filled the serving area.

The Bowling Green Independent Board of Education sold $2,190,000 in bonds to pay for the new kitchen and cafeteria at McNeill. By its opening Monday, all the city district’s elementary schools now have a separate gym, kitchen and cafeteria.

The new digs met with Jacques Ngoy’s approval Monday. The kindergartner looked around and exclaimed, “Nice.”

A plaque at the front door of the school displays the history of McNeill, which was intially called W.R. McNeill City-College Cooperative School, erected in 1963 by the Rogers Lumber Co. of Auburn and named after then-superintendent McNeill.

“The windows make it more cheerful,” Brooks said as she guided kids who brought their lunch to school and other kids who had just gone through the serving line Monday.

Spinks said 320 to 340 kids are served lunch and 110 to 120 kids are served breakfast.

“For breakfast this morning (Monday), we had some kids who don’t normally eat,” she said. “Guess they wanted to check out the new cafeteria. We’ve been in one room for so long.”

— Follow education reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter at twitter.com/bgdnschools