It's not hard to see why the star of the University of Michigan's South Quadrangle $60 million renovation project is its new dining hall.

The state-of-the-art, centralized dining center underwent a complete overhaul and was the main focus of the renovation project said Peter Logan, communications director for University Housing.

"This renovation takes our success to a whole other level and we just keep learning as we do these. Expectations and trends change, so it really articulates the whole micro-restaurant concept," he said.

"This is not what folks anticipate as a residence hall cafeteria. This is anything but that."

That micro-restaurant concept comes to life through 10 different themed dining options for the students. The all-you-can-eat dining hall features a Mediterranean restaurant, an all-day breakfast bar, a vegan restaurant, a deli, a smokehouse, an Asian restaurant with a sushi chef, and other options.

Nearly all of the food is made to order – including the sushi, which is hand-rolled to order – and plated gourmet style by the chefs at each location.

Chefs will chose their own menu at the Signature Creative Cuisine station in the newly renovated South Quad dining area at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Aug. 22, 2014. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

For students with meal plan options, this is the first year that the school has switched over to its unlimited meal plans for all students with housing contracts. Those students can come and go and dine as often or as infrequently as they choose. The meal portion averages out to about $2,000 per semester, housing officials said.

"It's not one continuous line like the old cafeteria-style dining areas you're used to. It's a tray-less dining area. You'll see a lot of the preparation of the food is done right out in front of the students and a lot of it is done to order so a student can customize what they want. It provides a much better dining experience for them," Logan said.

"People can flow around and dine freely, and we've also created seating spaces that reflect the serving area around it. It has more of a restaurant feel to it."

Frank Turchan, the executive chef for Residential Dining Services, said that the tray-less dining and made-to-order options helps cut down on food waste, and that it helps to concentrate on portion sizes and plating, which also cuts down on waste.

He said that the university received a lot of feedback from the students about what they wanted to see in a new-age dining hall, and what types of dining options they wanted available to them.

"(Students) know Food Network, they know the blogs, they're coming to us showing us photos and things, and we need to be at that level. So we're bringing guest chefs in, we're bringing in top chefs that I've met over my career and really educating the students. The students are our consumers and our guests so we have to get them involved," Turchan said.

"We really watch the trends. I go to Chicago a couple times a year; I talk to my colleagues in New York and other places just to see what trends are popping up. People looked at me funny when I talked about wanting to put in a smokehouse, but we can now do so many different things there. It's really cool being able to do some nice things."

With the ability to sit 950 people at a time, South Quad's dining hall is expected to become the campus hot spot for a while according to the building's associate manager David Adler.

Adler said the renovations to the entire building – not just the cafeteria – have blown him away and look better than he imagined it could've looked. He said he imagines roughly 4,500 people will dine in South Quad daily.

Pasta Puttanesca Italia with Tofu at 24 Carrots in the South Quad dining center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Aug. 22, 2014. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

"Breakfast we're expecting around 600-700, lunch will probably be about 2,000 and dinner probably around 1,500-1,600, give or take a couple hundred. Roughly 4,500 would be a good estimate," Adler said.

"During the beginning everybody is going to want to come here. Football Saturdays will be the same way because everyone comes right by here so those are going to be huge days for us."

He added that students, staff, and upper management have all been amazed at the changes, and that he was amazed too.

"What we're doing here is different than anything we've ever done. It met and exceeded my expectations. It blew me away," he said.

"Being in this business as long as I've been, I've never seen anything like this. We're very excited."

As much as the dining hall was the focus of the renovation, it wasn't the only part of the South Quad project.

The entire first floor of the building was gutted down to just the cement support beams. Support offices were added, and an access point was created to the lower level.

The lower level has a multicultural room, about a half-dozen musical practice rooms (some of which are equipped with pianos), a community kitchen for students, a recreation room, and several open- and closed-area study lounges that can fit groups as large as 10 people.

The recreation room in the newly renovated South Quad at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Aug. 22, 2014. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

"It provides a nice flow from the front entrance and first-floor community area down to the other lounges and study spaces and recreation room down below," Logan said.

None of the 630 dorm rooms got renovated for the 1170 inhabitants of those rooms, but the shared bathrooms were all redone with new fixtures, flooring, countertops, partition walls and some were made bigger.

"This was not as extensive as other renovations we've done where we've replaced all of the infrastructure such as plumbing and heating and replaced data lines and things of that nature. South Quad has had its data upgraded a few years ago, and we didn't have to rip into its infrastructure as deeply since this building wasn't as old," Logan said.

Comparatively, West Quad is also being renovated, but that project includes infrastructure upgrades. The scope of the renovation is a bit larger in scale, but Logan said the project is nearly double that of the South Quad makeover.

The north entrance of South Quad has been done brand new, and they've added additional square footage to the front and the back of the building to increase traffic flow from one end of the building to the other.

With South Quad as the premiere dining location for central campus, it has about 50 percent more seating that Hill Dining Center, which was redone in 2008, and substantially more seating options than East Quad, which got an upgrade last year. Logan said there won't be dining in the new West Quad or in Barber Hall.

"This will become more of a choice dining destination for students living on central campus. As far as the building, this was a selective renovation. It didn't need a deep renovation," Logan said.

"But what we have created, I think, is a remarkable dining experience for students that carries on from successes we've had from opening Hill Dining Center and then the North Quad Dining Center and the opening of East Quad."

The building also has a large demo kitchen, a prep area that is strictly gluten-free foods, and a prep kitchen on the lower level where a lot of the baking is done, produce is washed and chopped, and some foods are made, but most of the cooking is actually done at the restaurant stations inside the dining hall.

The dining hall's hours are from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

"We had a budget and we had a very ambitious concept and design that has been fulfilled beautifully," Logan said.