Colleges with best and worst dining halls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UCLA, Bowdoin, and the 5Cs are all fantastic.

I thought Dartmouth was pretty good, but my DC thought otherwise.

Smith, Skidmore, and Williams were cromulent.

Swarthmore traditionally has a reputation for mediocre food, but the new dining hall seems to be getting good reviews. My DC liked it.

I wonder how a school as large as UCLA can have such good food? Why wouldn't everyone use their provider?

Good question. UMass, another public school, is also renowned for having great food. Whereas, a few miles away, Amherst has merely okay food despite having a massively larger per-student endowment. (Suck it, Malcolm Gladwell!)

But I can affirm that UCLA's dorm food was legit in the late 90's. I don't remember it being fancy, but it was just well done. Fluffy eggs, high quality fresh fruit, etc. Whereas, when I visited a friend at UCSB, the food was more like what you'd get at a Hampton Inn breakfast buffet.

[Anonymous]

JMU

[Anonymous]

Penn- bleh!

[Anonymous]

Cornell has the best college food that I am familiar with. If they open a seniors campus I will move there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umass Amherst. Seriously.

Agree. Unsurpassed!

[Anonymous]

I thought Univ. of Richmond was pretty good but we did hit it on parents weekend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:George Washington has great food, actually.

Please don't confuse it with Georgetown.

W&M had the worst food of all the colleges we visited two years ago, but I've heard they overhauled their dining.

That must be new, because when I went there 20 years ago the food hall was truly pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kenyon was bad
Swarthmore was outstanding

Based on visits last year.

Swarthmore just finished a huge remodel of theirs. According to DD and friends, the food still needs remodeling.

[Anonymous]

Indiana Bloomington's student union had an excellent salad bar style restaurant with hot entrees (pay by weight) when we were there last summer. There were also grill, pizza, and wok options of regular quality. These were connected to the student cards. We didn't eat in the dorm cafs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kenyon was bad
Swarthmore was outstanding

Based on visits last year.

Swarthmore just finished a huge remodel of theirs. According to DD and friends, the food still needs remodeling.

those are very picky kids. even swat's older hall is really nice, bright, indoor/outdoor and food is great - bread baked on site, wood fired pizza, omelets made to order, pasta cooked to order, grill with fresh meat not frozen patties, lots of "ethnic" options at every meal including curry, Thai food (so good), etc. Homemade ice cream and lots of desserts at every lunch, dinner.

they also have about a half dozen private dining rooms so you're study group or club can eat and study.

I couldn't convince my kids to even apply bcs it's small, but the food is good. You can tell when they've done a good job when the dining halls are filled with groups of kids lingering. Bad dining halls - lots of single kids wolfing down food while looking at their phone.

[Anonymous]

yale has a very pretty main hall with quality food

I think some schools make the mistake of making too many options. Bowdoin and Yale both have plenty of choices at every meal - like 4 or 5. Not like the dozens of stations at Georgetown - all crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yale has a very pretty main hall with quality food

I think some schools make the mistake of making too many options. Bowdoin and Yale both have plenty of choices at every meal - like 4 or 5. Not like the dozens of stations at Georgetown - all crap.

This is good analysis. Great dining halls typically are split between Clean Eats/Pizza and Salad bar/Hot Cooked-in-front-of-you Meal/Solid Vegetarian option. Sometimes they have specialty sections like a Blue Zone option, but they tend to have few, high quality options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cornell has the best college food that I am familiar with. If they open a seniors campus I will move there.

+1 Morrison Dining Hall at Cornell is amazing. It's open to the public and if I live in Ithaca I would eat there all the time.

[Anonymous]

In general, those that run their own dining services tend to have better food. Those that contract dining services out to big corporate entities are not as good. Anecdotal observation, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In general, those that run their own dining services tend to have better food. Those that contract dining services out to big corporate entities are not as good. Anecdotal observation, of course.

this is why I find Gladwell's evaluation so nuts. Bowdoin grows much of their own food, and they spend money on it, but mostly in the form of work-study back into students hands. vassar contracts it all out.