Best campus food

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]I believe hot breakfast at Harvard was generally cut during the Great Recession. A lot of their endowment is restricted for other things apparently.[/quote]

Oh come on. The richest university in the country? Glad my LAC kid gets a nice hot breakfast every morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How's the food at smaller liberal arts colleges that don't have a large enough student body to justify 3 million different food options?

DH and I both went to larger schools with tons of choices (multiple cafeterias, delis, fast food, and even sit-down restaurants) and availability. It was easy to grab food on off hours, pretty much anywhere on campus.

How does that work at schools with 2,000 students?

Could be the food is better because they can focus on smaller quantities over mass production with 2,000 instead of 40,000.

The food at Amherst is grotesque, so there goes that theory.

What? No it's not. I've eaten there a few times in the last year and it's been decent to good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bowdoin is absolutely incredible. I look forward to going to the dining hall when we visit our kid.

They don't pay for a dining caterer like many schools do. They have their own in-house chefs and it shows. They take great pride in their food quality understand that community is built around the table.

Easy when you're cooking for like a dozen kids. lol

It's actually cheaper per student aa the number of students increases

Not talking about cost. Talking about quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe hot breakfast at Harvard was generally cut during the Great Recession. A lot of their endowment is restricted for other things apparently.

Jesus Christ. Harvard sounds terrible. I saw the campus in person for the first time a few months ago. Underwhelming doesn't begin to describe it. I had to double check that it wasn't some similarly named boarding school in the area.

[Anonymous]

Is the fact that the best dining halls are at state flagships in blue states because those schools are better funded?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the fact that the best dining halls are at state flagships in blue states because those schools are better funded?

No. Whoever thinks that is dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe hot breakfast at Harvard was generally cut during the Great Recession. A lot of their endowment is restricted for other things apparently.

Jesus Christ. Harvard sounds terrible. I saw the campus in person for the first time a few months ago. Underwhelming doesn't begin to describe it. I had to double check that it wasn't some similarly named boarding school in the area.

As a Harvard alum, I loved the historic dorms. I had a working fireplace freshman year and very nice singles after that. The walkability was also nice, though Cambridge has changed a lot (more corporate and blah). Otherwise I don’t disagree with you.

[Anonymous]

^^the food was and is awful. Zero excuse for cold continental breakfasts only! Does any other college do that??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the athletes dining hall at Tennessee is fantastic

But the two other dining halls for everyone else are not, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^the food was and is awful. Zero excuse for cold continental breakfasts only! Does any other college do that??

Absurd that one can attend the most prestigious university on the globe (and one of the most expensive) but can't get a gat dang omelette.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think kids choose Harvard for the food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think kids choose Harvard for the food.

A PP made that point. Harvard allocates little to dining because that doesn't affect its bottom line. The wealthy students can pick up or doordash whatever they want.

[Anonymous]

Why are people so lazy as to believe that Harvard doesn't have hot breakfast when it's incredibly easy to confirm the opposite.

Belgian waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage.

https://www.dining.harvard.edu/weeks-undergraduate-menus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bowdoin is absolutely incredible. I look forward to going to the dining hall when we visit our kid.

They don't pay for a dining caterer like many schools do. They have their own in-house chefs and it shows. They take great pride in their food quality understand that community is built around the table.

Easy when you're cooking for like a dozen kids. lol

It's actually cheaper per student aa the number of students increases

Not talking about cost. Talking about quality.

Quality isn't hard to scale. Just keep the same chef to student ratio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are people so lazy as to believe that Harvard doesn't have hot breakfast when it's incredibly easy to confirm the opposite.

Belgian waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage.

https://www.dining.harvard.edu/weeks-undergraduate-menus

The majority of Harvard halls don't have a full range of hot breakfast options.

According to this, only two halls offer full hot breakfast but they added warm breakfast sandwich options this fall for all dorms:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/9/10/huds-menu-changes/

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/7/huds-hot-breakfast-union-petition/