Not Quite Marriott

[kchoya]

The daily menu at Harvard:

www.huds.harvard.edu/foodpro/location.asp

I don't remember any organic pasta sauce or smart dogs when I went to New South. Maybe the Leo has improved things?

I like the icons for vegetarian and vegan offerings.

[dairishhoya]

Georgetown's:

dining.georgetown.edu/

[tgo]

i was on campus for the first time in years and the new cafeteria is amazing, beautiful and all around incredible. food looked great, they had fresh baked pies!!!

[CTHoya08]

The food at the cafeteria is not very good.

It's better than last year, thanks to the option of the cheesesteak, but overall the quality isn't great. Of course, I'm an Italian-American from the Northeast, so I'm kind of a jerk about food. It seems like they use all of the good meals during lunch, and dinner is usually pretty bad.

[hoyaboy1]

I hate the new caf. Maybe I just got bored of it, but I actually liked New South better. I didn't have a meal plan last year, and I don't this year either.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

I spent 25 minutes in line today waiting for crappy Turkey to go with my mashed potatoes. I hate that we only have one caf.

[DFW HOYA]

Of course, Harvard Dining Services runs 14 house (dorm)dining halls and six restaurants. Imagine separate dining halls in Harbin, Copley, the as-yet-unnamed Village C, etc.?

www.dining.harvard.edu/residential_dining/halls_hours.html

PS: Two questions:

1. When did all this vegan stuff pop up? (I think it's illegal in Texas.)

2. Are vegetarians in college mostly women?

[TigerHoya]

hoyaboy1 said:

I hate the new caf. Maybe I just got bored of it, but I actually liked New South better. I didn't have a meal plan last year, and I don't this year either.

Living on 1st floor of New South was sweet. Easy to beat the crowds to eat.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

having only one cafeteria is rediculous they should either reope at least one either New south or Darnall or allow out meal plan to be used in the Hoya court or in whichever establishment ends up in Darnall

[Jack]

nm

[CAHoya07]

dfw said:

PS: Two questions:

1. When did all this vegan stuff pop up? (I think it's illegal in Texas.)

2. Are vegetarians in college mostly women?

Not sure if you're being serious, but I know more than a handful of male college-aged vegetarians, though not at Georgetown.

My main gripe with Leo's is the lack of variety. There is only one station that really ever changes, which is on the top floor, and if it's anything worth having you wait in line for 20 minutes. Closing Darnall was a bad idea. As big as Leo's is, I don't think having just one cafeteria for 6,000+ undergrads is very feasible.

Then again, I'm on a 75 per semester meal plan now, and plan on bumping it down to 45 in the spring...

[DanMcQ]

dfw said:

1. When did all this vegan stuff pop up? (I think it's illegal in Texas.)

DFW, this is the People's Republic of Cambridge we're talking about. You'll eat vegan and like it!

[SoCalHoya]

Lots of the Ivy League schools have many "eating clubs/cafeterias" spread across their campuses. However, so many of my friends who are alumni from those schools often complain that there are too many, the food is inconsistent (the better ones fill up) and that they never meet anyone new since people usually stick with the clubs they know. So, I see our situation as a wash. Though I would most certainly like to chase Marriott as far away from the Hilltop as possible.

[CTHoya08]

Since I don't have experience with any dining system other than Georgetown's, I don't really have an opinion about whether it's better to have one big dining hall or several smaller ones. What I can say however, is that I have yet to meet anyone new in the dining hall, despite the fact that it is one big place where everyone goes.

[FLHoya]

cthoya08 said:

Since I don't have experience with anything dining system other than Georgetown's, I don't really have an opinion about whether it's better to have one big dining hall or several smaller ones. What I can say however, is that I have yet to meet anyone new in the dining hall, despite the fact that it is one big place where everyone goes.

What's funny is that I've heard the opposite side of this spectrum now since I started in grad school at GW. Basically, GW's meal plan for undergrads amounts to a huge amount of debit dollars that you can use either in the student center at one of the vendors, or at about a million different delivery/dine in places near campus.

So basically, you lose the cafeteria food problem, but you also lose the cafeteria. The only cafeteria at GW is on the Mount Vernon Campus (for obvious reasons)--used to be one in HOVA which is across from the Watergate but it's gone now too.

And the funny thing is...GW kids complain all the time about not having a cafeteria. I figured--I guess biased by four years of the New South-Darnall-Leo's food--that a meal plan of basically all-vendor and store-bought food from the District market would be awesome. But one of the big complaints is actually that students don't have any place like a cafeteria to socialize and feel like a student body (that concern comes up in EVERYTHING here). There's plans to put a Chipotle in an empty campus building here (the Quigley's on 21st and G if you're wondering) and people are actually speaking out AGAINST it--wanting some kind of more "student friendly" space instead.

I think what it comes down to in the end is this: any time you have to eat basically the same stuff for any period of time, it starts to suck no matter what. I didn't have a problem with New South when I came for a summer program for a week when I was in HS...but man, two weeks into my freshman year I was on a first name basis with the Dominos guys.

(By the way, that menu isn't THAT different from Leo's--all cafeterias put the lipstick on the proverbial pig w/ menus like that, I've seen the GU versions. Doesn't mean that organic stuff's any good).

[reformation]

Cornell had by far the best food of any univ that I've been to--I guess because they have the premier hotel & restuarant school in the US + an ag school where I think that they grow some of their own stuff, and i'm pretty sure that the students run it. If we want to learn something from another place I would look at Cornell in this regard

Other places seem to be pretty much the same, though I guess Navy's food was above avg--guess the taxpayer subsidy helps. I've eaten in one of Columbia's smaller dining facilities a bunch of times and it was ok too

[RBHoya]

I like Leos as a sort of a campus hub, along with Red Square. It feels more like college that way. Plus, it gives us a place to stand outside of and push HB stuff. That said, I think its nice to have one other dining hall, like Darnall, to reduce crowding at Leos. Last years setup was pretty good in my opinion, and with the upgrades that happened at Hoya Court, I'd think that'd mean more competition for Marriot, forcing them to up their game and reducing crowding even more at Leos. As it stands now, its too hard to get a place to sit if you go between 5:30 and 7, and you have to wait in line for quite a while.

As for food, choice, I don't think its that bad. They have 2 different entrees each day, plus pasta, pizza, burgers, chicken patties, hotdogs etc. every day. If you mix it up between the variable entrees, the downstairs regulars, and the other stuff like soup, salads, sandwiches, cereal, etc. It isn't too bad, IMO.

Really what would you rather them do? It's unrealistic to think that they'll have 4 different variable entrees everyday, IMO.

[CTHoya08]

It's not that they don't have enough variety. The problem is that the food isn't good.

[TBird41]

I don't know--I had some good pasta w/ beef marinara sauce, broccoli, some hummus and tortilla chips and some honey dew. Pretty good meal, if I do say so myself.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

RB - to your comment about Marriot having some compeitition - that is precisely the problem from the Georgetown administration stand-point. Marriot gives a lot of money to Georgetown and has an incredibly close working relationship with Georgetown University (e.g. the Leavey Center is split 50/50 between GU and Marriot) - Marriot has already taken a hit with the reopened Hoya Court (the old Hoya Court used to be completely Marriot controlled - even the "Taco Bell" which used Marriot food products) - it is unlikely that they will be happy with having an outside contractor in Darnall or anyother student space on campus - I'm pretty sure this is what's holding up the Darnall replacement (that and GUSA not having done anything of note to represent the student body in an effective way in the last 2 months).