College Cafeteria Food

Ahh or in my case. Aramark.

it varies

university of the pacific has a pretty good one

Both are remarkably terrible sometimes but pull through every once in awhile.

Worked for both Aramark and Marriot as a student/line cook.

They were both a step up from high school, but it was still mostly frozen shit from US foods.

If you're a picky eater, get an electric skillet/something you can boil water in and learn how to cook. Side points if you get a job at said cafeteria and steal as much food as you can get away with.

ayye UCSB fag here
food is ok but you will pay out the ass
honestly Its not that hard to eat for pennies
one cup of oatmeal
2 bannanas
2/3 cup of walnuts
its the perfect breakfast

Purdue

Ranged from "ok" to "pretty fucking ridiculous" depending on which court you went to.

The one nearest to my dorm was the best. They had a pho station that you couldn't really go wrong with. The one a few more blocks away had a barbecue station with slow cooked drumsticks and flank steak every day.

Getting a free meal plan was probably 80% of why I became an RA.

we had Sodexo. it ranged from Okay to Garbage. get off the meal plan ASAP.

Mine at least served burgers every day that were cooked just the way I liked them. Sometimes they had chicken fried chicken that was delicious, but usually there was nothing else good, so I just went to the chick fil a on campus mostly

You should only be using the cafeteria as a place to meet women and then take them back to your dorm for vigorous sexual intercourse.

Ayyyye!
Man did you guys have a dorm fitted with a kitchen because fuck did they jack us up by only giving us one kitchen that no one even uses.

2 portable cups of cream cheese for 75 cents
1/4 cup of brown sugar
mix together and spread on a bagel. Gives you the sugar high for morning classes.

Food @ Stetson University was 6-8/10 most days.

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Legitimately depends on the campus.

I go to CU boulder and the cafeteria here is pretty top notch. I've been to a few others though and the food was garbage.

I might get a small meal plan for like 3 meals a week just because I hate going back home to get food during classes. I never stayed in a dorm. (And sometimes I feel like I missed out)

>college

what the fuck is that. maybe school. but in college? please america.

Been to a public and private university. Obviously the private university food was infinitely better. But then again, tuition jumped from 20 grand a year to 80 grand a year, so it makes sense.

What are you even trying to convey here?

Boston University
Aramark
Occasionally good, but mainly terrible

My college used to have some good stuff, the clam chowder especially was great. Mondays were kinda annoying though, because one of the dining halls would have a "Meatless Monday" where they had just awful vegan shit, and you didn't know which dining hall it was at until you went to see. After a couple years though, quality took a real nosedive, no idea why.

Go slugs.

My school supposedly has highly rated dining halls, but it got monotonous pretty quick, and the campus restaurants that were basically the off-label equivalent of some of the popular national casual restaurants basically just served limper, soggier versions of what you'd get at those restaurants.

UVA here, its fucking terrible.

>FIU - was dependably good before the remodel, now depends on the daily menu. ingredient quality has definitely gone down, though
Used to be operated by the #2 hospitality school in the nation. Then they got the typical food serve vendors and all that other shit. It was great 15 years ago. Why it isn't 80% latino food is beyond me, as its their demographic. The food court options are abysmal too, aside from the pork bun and bubble tea. Bad university president. Even the degree certificates look unimpressive, his personal change.

UM - Medical campus. I've had some great jobs in hospitals, where there can be decent food that appeals to high income workers who demand healthy as well as quality food like the kind they would get if they were dining out in the evenings themselves around the town at the top chefs, from Baptist to Jackson to Georgetown Then, yea, another remodel here or there and it stopped being homemade as much. All kind of a cost cutting measure. But, a doctor isn't going to only do greasy, and the soups should be better than canned. They notoriously had a great salad bars and daily specials. But, I think with places like Wegmans and Whole Foods in the past 10 years with fast-cafeteria alternative dining while varied salad bars, hot foods, prepared salads, fresh bread, soups....this is where the high income fast takeout happens now. My local Whole Foods has the local sushi chain dishing from its own counter all day. I like ethiopian night for some kind of pepita topped pumpkin beef stew that is to die for...not bad if you know what to get by the pound (and what to avoid) where it can be cheaper than making it yourself.

Ayyy, my nigga. Lived in tark, went to ford, it was ok to bretty good and wiley which was probably the GOAT chow hall on campus. you still there?

It was a good way to go hang out with people freshman year, but if you keep it beyond that you're stupid. They're crazy expensive and generally have bad food.

Explain

Fine for freshman year but it gets old really quickly, especially if your cafeteria has little variety like some of the dining halls on my campus. It's also overpriced as shit, I think it works out to $15 for dinner with some of the meal plans, so your options are waste money or get fat.
Also my cafeteria wasn't known for being the cleanest, someone found a live maggot in a salad last year.

Sorry for not going to a community college.

Mississippi State's cafeteria is great.
Pancakes are the best.

>making your own meals in a dorm room
technically you're not even allowed to have a hot plate (no one follows the dorm rules though).

some colleges have good food, while others don't. unless you're going to eat at the cafeteria for over 75% of your monthly meals, you shouldn't get the meal plan (unless it is obligatory).

>"Meatless Monday" where they had just awful vegan shit

that's what you get for going to ucsc

My campus food was fairly solid for it being cafeteria food. The company regularly took suggestions and made an effort to have some variety and some regulars like decent pizza, bagels, sandwiches and cold cereal. The soups were not bad. Breakfast was almost the same, scrambled eggs, some form of processed potato and a meat. They did have an omelette bar though which was nice.

The best was this cafe they had. They cooked burgers or chicken strips for you. They had amazing wraps that were the best.

Try talking to upperclassmen and see what they liked

My school (MU) was between mediocre and bad. The only plus is that everything was a buffet. I split a meal plan with three other people so the swipes went from costing 9$ to almost 6$. Then I just ate 2500 kcal in one swipe and never buy any other food. I also stuffed a bunch of food in my friend's purse to take home.

It's all about quantity over quality eating at the dining halls. Get out of there and the dorms asap.

My college cafeteria was run by ex prisoners.

>The best was this cafe they had. They cooked burgers or chicken strips for you. They had amazing wraps that were the best.

Will second this. For breakfast a fresh cooked to order omelet, for lunch either a wrap or panini, and dinner sometimes there would be a dish on a wok you could order.

In short, try to get items that they serve in front of you. You will always be able to find a buffet, might as well do something a little more unique.

If you ever do take out, be creative. For me it was as much food you could stuff in a Styrofoam box. and a cup of soda. I never used that cup for soda, it was either pasta or maybe ice cream.

Depends on the university. My school was large enough (25,000 undergraduates) to have multiple "dining halls" across campus. I would say that the 6 or 7 cafeterias ranged from shit to great.

The one closest to me was consistently the worst in terms of both quality and variety. Lots of fried stuff that had been kept on the line too long, lukewarm pizza, everything being generally greasy and under/overcooked etc. However, about once a week some student chefs would come through with an actual sushi chef and would have a line for sushi immediately upon the dining hall opening. It definitely wasn't restaurant quality, but it was better than the prepackaged sushi you can find in stores and it provided some much needed variety.

Most of the rest of the cafeterias had average to good food, and had a decent selection so you didn't go nuts over the lack of choices. Sandwiches, wraps, hot salad stations (grilled meats), burritos, pasta, carved meats, lots of fried stuff, soups, stews, bakery stuff, pizza, and a minimal selection of Asian food. Then there are the salad and fruit bars. BE CAREFUL WITH THESE. Find the best/freshest salad and fruit bar on campus and only take food from those. The rest of them will look decent enough but you will be playing with fire if you accidentally take any expired food or stuff that has been left out too long, especially cheeses, dressings, and salad greens. I worked at one of the dining halls when I was in high school and would consistently find cobwebs and sometimes dead spiders in the melons. The silver lining to the sketchy fruit/salad bars was the dessert. I could always depend on these to be at least good and usually great tasting. They were normally grocery-store tier in quality, so if you buy or enjoy desserts at the store you'll probably like those too.

Then there were the dining halls everyone wanted to go to. Fresh salads with walnuts, cranberries, feta cheese, and grilled chicken. Wings and better quality fried chicken compared to the rest. Better tasting pizza and good french fries. If they served breakfast, it was a full breakfast bar including a station that would make omelets to order. Unfortunately many of the best items you'll find at a college cafeteria are a la carte, so you'll either pay with cash/card or more likely use your dining plan "points" for these.

Overall I'd give my university a 6.5/10 for food in general. You should really try to eat out a couple meals a week, or if you have the time use your dorm kitchen if it has one.

Mah nigga. I went to CSU but my brother goes to CU and when I visited him we ate at the C4C. Was 9/10 for a university cafeteria.

The dining hall at my school had great breakfast, all right lunch (burgers and pizza always, which were fun and dependable), and generally meh dinners. The best things it offered were DIY stations: waffles, sandwiches, cereal, salads, and coffee.

It's kind of hard to fuck those things up.

I went to Pomona College for a year.

Not sure how it compares to other colleges, but since you have access to dining halls in 5 nearby colleges, most of the time you can check the menus and find a place that had something decent. There was one dining hall I only visited once because it was really bad, but the rest were ok to good.

my university (uw-milwaukee) has a garden they take from and generally simple recipes with fresh ingredients. It's sometimes kind of bland but otherwise tastes good and is filling.

But if possible learn to cook. It's a useful skill!

Depended a lot on when and where I went. The buffet hall I'd go to would do the same bog standard southern breakfast nearly every day, lunch would be varied, and dinner would range from amazing to kinda trash. They'd also do theme meals would were generally very good. i remember a crawfish boil and Octoberfest in particular. The food court places were about mall food court level, and I never went to any of the on-campus chains.

If they force people who live on campus to buy meal plans like my college did, chances are that near the end of the semester people will have more meals left than they can eat and will be willing to share.

Michigan State: You're pretty much guaranteed to be within 10 minutes walking from a good caf and the best cafs can serve some memorable meals. I've had salmon from Landon and bibimbap and butter chicken from Snyphi that was as good as what you'd get from a sit-down. Snyphi even used to serve mariscada and paella once a month but a bunch of pussies with shitty taste complained that they needed more fucking pasta bar, which replaced mariscada and paella.

Anyone here know if UNT food is any good?
I'm gonna be eating their food for a year, hoping its decent

I noticed one thing. College cafeterias rarely ever fuck up breakfast.

UW localpoint would every time undercook their eggs, like when they served the scramble there was still uncooked liquid. But fall 2015 they had some god tier biscuits with sausage mushroom gravy, idk why they got rid of it desu

I go to Gonzaga. Our cafeteria is brand new this year, and it's pretty great. Every station is staffed so they cook your food to order. There are pizzas and nachos sitting out if you want to grab and go, but otherwise it's fresh stuff. really great options. Breakfast is the best meal, like other anons have pointed out.

Our meal plans come with passes to local restaurants, so most of the time kids will just each dinner at one of the places around campus that accept the school tickets.

why does it look like that?

I have never had a good breakfast from a college dining hall.

tendies day was the best day

I went to Simon Fraser University and gained my freshman 15 on their cafeteria poutine. It was shitty but my god everything else sucked more.

They'd sell soggy sushi rolls, and lukewarm salads with burnt chicken in them.

it's made out of ticks

UGA here, I loved the dining halls. Good variety, took input from students, and there would be fast enough turnover during lunch/dinner hours for everything to be fresh. It's not 5-star dining by any means (I don't know why you'd expect that from a college buffet) but it got close to medium-price restaurant quality sometimes, there were some areas that would custom-make stuff like cheesesteaks, I abused the fuck out of those.
It is expensive though, didn't get the meal plan after 2nd year

Will dump pics from my uni cafeteria so anons can get an idea of what it's like

Sweet potato fries, garbanzo beans patties on the right

Sandwich making area, obviously has more stuff than in pic

Cream cheese are, part of the breakfast bar. Also has bagels, muffins, cereal, etc

Fruit salad station, all produce currently in season is supposedly sourced locally

Dessert station, dinner will usually have some kind of cake or pie

Random crackers/sauces, next to the salad station

Just some more fruit.

All in all, our food is really good.

I'm going into my junior year, and this is the first year we've had food this good. We switched from the aramark to bon appetit for food providers, and bon appetit is miles above in terms of quality and variety.

Would normally cook during the year, but my scholarship includes free room/board, so I don't really see the point in paying for food desu

Wait, do they let students make their own sandwiches? My school contracted out to Aramark and they were stingy as fuck with the meat. Some employee had to make it for me.

Yeah, we can make most basic staple foods ourselves. The employees just handle any heating aspects, like if you want a grilled sandwich/pasta bake/quesadilla/etc.

Even when we had aramark, which is a shot company, they still let us do it desu. Only thing that's changed in that regard is that the meat/cheese/bread quality has improved.

Where do you go to school? I'm at RHIT

Breakfast sausage at WSU routinely had bits of smashed bones in them.

UNC, where students are only entrusted with peanut butter and jelly.

>I'm at RHIT
FUCK i almost went there

Kek, petition your school to change providers m8. That's what we did, although were private so that may have had something to do with it.

We have access to a salad bar, a sandwich bar, a pasta bar, fruit salad bar, assorted spreads, and theirs a station where you can order custom eggs.

P good

Where'd you go instead m8? Honestly I love it here, although I have a full ride so the cost doesn't really concern me.

You lucky fucker!

We need to get rid of aramark man.

>my college's food used to be pretty good
>it changed vendors this year and it mostly sucks now
>a lot of my favorite dishes aren't offered anymore

I miss the lamb stew and chicken pesto sandwiches.

The final straw for us was when we learned that a prison in town was also served by aramark, and they got so sick of it they rioted.

Bon appetit is really top notch, they even rehired all the cooks so that they didn't lose their jobs, and only the shitty management did

ITT: Rich fucks who have never worked a day in their life.

Why don't you just go to community college or get a job?

? M80 I probably go to the most expensive school here, worked my ass off in high school, worked at various restaurants from 15-18, work part time now. Got a full ride for my efforts.

Y R u bully

I never lived in catered housing. I'd rather have the flexibility of making my own meals, plus it generally turns out cheaper. I'd expect someone from Veeky Forums to opt for non-catered to be honest, senpai.

Tbh senpai, my uni's food was actually bretty gud and I'm a recent graduate.

I'm not a picky eater though. So if you're picky, you might be fucked. But at mine they rotated foods from different "comfort foods" by day, rotated things like burgers, dogs, fried chicken sandwiches, etc. So if I didn't really like anything of those options, they ALWAYS had 4 different kinds of 'za (cheese, pepperoni, and 2 specialties), a stir fry station, and a deli where they would make you a cold cut and they had an option to toast it. Oh and they always had a salad bar. So yeah, if you're not picky, you'll be fine. I always thought the quality was pretty good too but I went to a decent-sized school, so it was always moving and nothing really sat out. Like on hamburger days there was usually lines depending on what time you went.

WSU still cougin it i see

I'd expect someone from Veeky Forums to go out for fast food every day, senpai.

My local state school UW seattle, i didnt get enough scholarship money from rose hulman to make it worth it

Baked basa anyone?

Yeah, no surprise there. It wasn't too hard to just go to the next nearest dining hall anyhow. Still had a good campus. The protests kind of grated on you though as time passed...

>not going to a university and renting a proper flat.
why tho

That's fucking prison food.

Bloomsburg University, Aramark survivor

>Same company that does lots of prison food
>Food tasted like prison food
>Had a grill station with severely overcooked burgers and chicken patties I got most of the time
>Home line was garbage 99% of the time, Only times it was acceptable was Meatloaf and Fried Chicken
>Premium Meals were a fucking ripoff
>Sandwich making area was gross and I always got slimy as fuck turkey or stale bread
>Always got gastric distress

They also catered
>Make group pay exorbitant fees for catering
>Food is actually worse than in the cafeteria
>Menu makers were racist as fuck (We had a speaker for MLK day and Aramark catered and we had Catfish, Cornbread and Collard greens, which Watermelon Frozen Ice for desert.

Luckily they had the Italian Kitchen when I was there
>Big Chicken wraps on homemade tortillas
>Homemade Kettle Chips
>$5 a meal

first two semesters lots of uni's require you to live on campus because it helps freshman retention rates.