College dining hall food

[Julie's Haircut]

Game day, or college visits or an event where folks were invited to the campus; yea there'd be families eating at the food court. But it would be weird for Smith family just traveling through town to pop in for dinner.

DW and I are admittedly weird and like to visit large university campuses during our travels. We don't go too far out of our way to do so, but if the college is in the vicinity or along the way, sure.

We sometimes eat while we're there. Every large university dining hall we've visited was open to the public. There are always plenty of visitors on campus for various reasons. Plus most large colleges have food courts in the student union and/or in the bookstore building. The variety of food available has certainly increased exponentially since the time I was in school.

In the stone age we had a paper meal ticket that student workers in the lobby would manually punch a hole with a device over the appropriate date. We had to wait in line towards the end of the month at the Bursar's office to get the next month's meal ticket. Freshman living on campus were required to buy a full plan, 19 meals per week. (Saturday and Sunday were brunch and dinner only.) They also had a Monday to Friday lunch plan for commuters. Upperclassmen could choose a several other plans with fewer meals. If you lived in campus housing you HAD to buy one of the meal plans. The dining hall was open to the public, and there was a cash only snack bar in the student union.

Some of the places we've visited in the past five years:
U of Florida, Gainesville
U of Minnesota, Minneapolis
U of Tennessee, Knoxville
Harvard, Cambridge, MA
U of South Carolina, Columbia
U of Washington, Seattle
North Carolina State, Raleigh

 

[katie01]

Interesting! I didn't realize there were college dining halls open to the public, that's neat.

My freshman year I went to a college where the food was really good, and I gained weight, not quite the typical freshman 15 but almost. The following year I transferred to a different college, where the food was so bad I lost what I'd gained and then some, I was quite a bit underweight until after I graduated lol

 

[Hikergirl]

I was really impressed with my dd's dining hall options. They have a pretty great salad bar, dessert bar and 3 or 4 stations where you can get the basics like chicken tender, pizza, burgers & fries, a deli station for wraps and sandwiches, a hot station for whatever the daily meal was on the menu, and a vegetarian station.
My ds's isn't as impressive but we only had breakfast there and it was at the smaller dining hall.
He said the other one is pretty good.
These visits were on move-in weekends, I don't think the public is allowed to just go in an eat but I really don't know for sure. I never knew that was an option at all for colleges and universities.

 

[maddiel]

In my time there we didn’t even get steamed shrimp. They did offer steak night once a semester I believe it was, and handed out a ticket so you could only get one (all other food was all you care to eat). The lines were very long, and the steak really was not so good.

My university always seemed to have steak night on the Thursday before a long weekend, presumably so you would go home on Friday and tell your parents what you had the night before. We had punch cards and a punch was all-you-could-eat, but steak night you got a little card so that you would only get one steak.

At my daughter's university the main cafeteria seems to offer a good menu, although she says everyday food isn't quite as good as what they had when parents were helping with move in and were invited to eat lunch on campus. They get 2 guest passes per term and a small amount of campus cash for non-caf food in their meal plan.

Last year there was a significant storm (including several tornadoes) in the city where she goes to school that left much of the area around the school without power for a day or two although the campus didn't lose power. That weekend the university advertised on social media that the people in the community could come to the cafeteria.

M.

 

[bcla]

DW and I are admittedly weird and like to visit large university campuses during our travels. We don't go too far out of our way to do so, but if the college is in the vicinity or along the way, sure.

I remember a lot of foreign tourists visiting some of our better known local universities in tour buses. When I was a student it was pretty common to see a large group come in take photos, and leave within 10 minutes.

I used to work in the same university town. On the edges of downtown and across the street from the campus there use to be this really small but excellent Japanese restaurant. They were always really good to me there and it was the kind of place where chit chat with the chef is considered part of the experience. But I asked about the Japanese signs displayed on the window and all the Japanese tourists who visited. In particular I asked if he advertised in any way. He said they have a lot of Japanese tourists coming specifically to visit the campus and they see the signs and walk in.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

I remember a lot of foreign tourists visiting some of our better known local universities in tour buses. When I was a student it was pretty common to see a large group come in take photos, and leave within 10 minutes.

I used to work in the same university town. On the edges of downtown and across the street from the campus there use to be this really small but excellent Japanese restaurant. They were always really good to me there and it was the kind of place where chit chat with the chef is considered part of the experience. But I asked about the Japanese signs displayed on the window and all the Japanese tourists who visited. In particular I asked if he advertised in any way. He said they have a lot of Japanese tourists coming specifically to visit the campus and they see the signs and walk in.

I'm sure many of the Ivies and some other places like Berkeley and Stanford attract lots of foreign tourists for a tour or quick look-see.

 

[bcla]

I'm sure many of the Ivies and some other places like Berkeley and Stanford attract lots of foreign tourists for a tour or quick look-see.

Sure. However, Stanford is somewhat different in that the campus proper and the surrounding city have somewhat of a distance between them. It's a large spread out campus that's not all that walkable. I remember going on a tour where the guide said that many (if not most) students had bicycles to get around campus. Where I went to school bicycles weren't allowed to be ridden except for roads where cars were allowed.

But yeah they get a lot of tourists, but it's a different dynamic with the surrounding area.

 

[RangerPooh]

The last college that my husband worked at allowed college faculty and staff to purchase discounted meal credits during specific times during the year. There was only one real dining hall on campus, the other was a pub. So faculty, staff, and students all ate there for lunch. It was not uncommon to see faculty/staff families enjoying weekend lunch or dinner on campus, especially on event weekends. Random community members no so much. But that was also a smaller, private, liberal arts college.

When we both worked for a large public land grant university I would have never consider eating in the dining halls. Didn't know of any faculty/staff who did. If we ate on campus we'd hit the food court. Otherwise you went off campus into town or brought your own food. I do recall one meal during the summer where our office did eat in a dining hall, but it was only because we attended a function in one of the side rooms.

 

[tguz]

I graduated college in 1991 and our dining hall food was ok but not great. My son went to Central College in Pella, Ia and their dining hall food was great. It had different “stations” such as Mexican, Chinese, American, and Italian including brick fired pizza. It was awesome.

 

[RedAngie]

I graduated college in 1991 and our dining hall food was ok but not great. My son went to Central College in Pella, Ia and their dining hall food was great. It had different “stations” such as Mexican, Chinese, American, and Italian including brick fired pizza. It was awesome.

I hope there were no protests about the various ethnic foods like there were at Oberlin College several years back.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oberlin-college-students-cafeteria-food-is-racist (might have to disable ad blocker to read)

From a different article:

Gastronomically correct students at Oberlin College — alma mater of Lena Dunham — are filling the school newspaper with complaints and demanding meetings with campus dining officials and even the college president.

General Tso’s chicken was made with steamed chicken instead of fried — which is not authentically Chinese, and simply “weird,” one student bellyached in the Oberlin Review.

Others were up in arms over banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches served with coleslaw instead of pickled vegetables, and on ciabatta bread, rather than the traditional French baguette.

“It was ridiculous,” gripes Diep Nguyen, a freshman who is a Vietnam native.

Worse, the sushi rice was undercooked in a way that was, according to one student, “disrespectful” of her culture. Tomoyo Joshi, a junior from Japan, was highly offended by this flagrant violation of her rice. “I f people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative,” she said.

 

[JaxDad]

I hope there were no protests about the various ethnic foods like there were at Oberlin College several years back.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oberlin-college-students-cafeteria-food-is-racist (might have to disable ad blocker to read)

From a different article:

Gastronomically correct students at Oberlin College — alma mater of Lena Dunham — are filling the school newspaper with complaints and demanding meetings with campus dining officials and even the college president.

General Tso’s chicken was made with steamed chicken instead of fried — which is not authentically Chinese, and simply “weird,” one student bellyached in the Oberlin Review.

Others were up in arms over banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches served with coleslaw instead of pickled vegetables, and on ciabatta bread, rather than the traditional French baguette.

“It was ridiculous,” gripes Diep Nguyen, a freshman who is a Vietnam native.

Worse, the sushi rice was undercooked in a way that was, according to one student, “disrespectful” of her culture. Tomoyo Joshi, a junior from Japan, was highly offended by this flagrant violation of her rice. “I f people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative,” she said.

Oberlin has worse problems than their food.

 

[tguz]

I hope there were no protests about the various ethnic foods like there were at Oberlin College several years back.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oberlin-college-students-cafeteria-food-is-racist (might have to disable ad blocker to read)

From a different article:

Gastronomically correct students at Oberlin College — alma mater of Lena Dunham — are filling the school newspaper with complaints and demanding meetings with campus dining officials and even the college president.

General Tso’s chicken was made with steamed chicken instead of fried — which is not authentically Chinese, and simply “weird,” one student bellyached in the Oberlin Review.

Others were up in arms over banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches served with coleslaw instead of pickled vegetables, and on ciabatta bread, rather than the traditional French baguette.

“It was ridiculous,” gripes Diep Nguyen, a freshman who is a Vietnam native.

Worse, the sushi rice was undercooked in a way that was, according to one student, “disrespectful” of her culture. Tomoyo Joshi, a junior from Japan, was highly offended by this flagrant violation of her rice. “I f people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative,” she said.

None. I think they were happy to have such great food and choices.