College Dining Halls Go Upscale to Lure Students
College kids at Virginia Tech have a wood-burning pizza oven in the West End Market dining hall there. It's part of an overall trend among some schools to lure picky eaters to the admissions office.
“I didn’t apply to Bates, because, well, I ate there, the meal was not very good,” said Lucas Braun, a 17-year-old senior at Westtown School, outside of Philadelphia, who has been accepted at several colleges in the Northeast. “There’s something subliminal from the food you see in the dining hall and the meal they give you that influences your decision.”
Virginia Tech and Bowdoin College are the two schools that have routinely topped the dining list in a guide called The Best 366 Colleges.
At Virgina Tech's West End, you can grab "a whole Maine lobster, New York strip and rib-eye steaks cooked how you want them, grilled sesame-crusted tuna with wasabi mayo.” To be fair, those are à la carte selections that carry a supplemental cost to the regular dining plan. But the story lists other perks at other schools, including farmers' markets at Brown, an all-organic cafe at Yale, "spa waters" at Stanford, and a rotating coterie of guest chefs shared by the University of Massachusetts.
Of course, I'm particularly interested in the Virginia Tech pizza option.
“We discovered a way in the marketplace concept—kitchens brought out from behind the wall, cooking platforms with pizza ovens, broilers, fryers—so students can see you throw the dough, top it to order and put it in the wood-fired oven. And they don’t just want that product in name only, but they want it to be authentic, because they’ve eaten at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant and they want to smell that hickory wood burning.”
Well, shit on a shingle. I remember the highlight of my dorm dining hall experience was the make-your-own waffle station on weekends—when it was working and had a full vat of batter.
Haven't these kids heard of ramen?
Oh, scratch that. They probably have. No doubt they're demanding noodle virtuosos flown in from Japan to stretch ultra-authentic noodles to swim in the broth with their hunks of perfectly cut Berkshire pork.
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15 Comments:
No waffle bar in my dorm back in the day, but we were eating in style with a made-to-order burger window on one side of the dining hall. Maybe these kids will have their butlers come and stock the mini-fridges in their dorm rooms with caviar. Sheesh.
MelsDiner at 2:45PM on 04/09/08
I graduated from Boston University in 2006, but my freshman year they had a night once a month where they did lobster, or steak or something like that for the price of a regular meal.
jorach at 2:45PM on 04/09/08
Wow. I graduated from Boston College in 03 and the food was so bad my freshman year that I lost the freshman 15 instead of gaining it. It had improved by the time I left, but there was no wood oven pizza, still tons of deep fried foods (always had the longest lines) and seafood entrees were usually $8+. That said, one of the dining halls made the most delicious chicken salad sandwich. And the croutons at the salad bar were pretty amazing - big and crunchy and made from Rye bread. Memories!
bitchincamero at 2:58PM on 04/09/08
Well, c'mon down for a visit, Adam. I'll treat you to a slice.
Better than the pizza, though, is the barbecue at one of the dining centers. Then if you're still hungry there's tons more places to eat without leaving the campus . :)
Karen Resta at 3:18PM on 04/09/08
Thanks for the offer, Karen! Would I be able to get in without a student ID? Heh.
Adam Kuban at 3:30PM on 04/09/08
Actually, most of the places are open to the general public, Adam.
If it were I could always lend you my old one. We'd have to draw on the beard with pen. :)
Karen Resta at 4:13PM on 04/09/08
Heh. I recently visited a student center with a pretty nice dining hall at Cornell. It was actually a really nice dining hall. I don't think it had a wood-burning pizza oven, but it was miles above the stuff I had at KU. The gf and I sat there for a couple hours, going back and trying the different foods from the different stations—taco bar, Asian bar, hot dogs, sandwiches, waffle-maker, etc. I'm lucky KU never had such craziness or I would have gained 30 pounds right there.
Adam Kuban at 4:36PM on 04/09/08
One semester debuted sit down dinners on Fridays in one of the better dining halls at Rutgers (Cooper Dining Hall, probably the smallest dining hall, but prettiest and most inviting, IMO).
The food was still very much produced in mass quantities, much of it shipped in from conglomo food providers, but it was still a cut above the normal steam-table fare.
There was soup, salad, entree and dessert courses.The tables were covered in white table cloth and they set out good dishes and silverware. They had the staff come around and wait on tables.
It was a little cheesy, a little slapdash, but it became very popular and it was a fun way to spend a few hours on a Friday night.
That aside, my last two years at school, I didn't have a meal plan at all. I cooked, or if I had to eat out, there was a billion and one awesome options on campus, pizzerias, coffee houses, Middle-eastern food, sushi, Indian food.
This isn't counting all the off-campus options we had!
fuuchan at 5:50PM on 04/09/08
I still miss VT food! When I attended a few years ago, we weren't ranked as high but the food was amazingly good. For example, I'm not vegan, but when students requested more vegan options and the university brought in a vegan chef, I gorged on delicious, innovative vegan fare nearly everyday for lunch. I'd gulp down big glasses of soy milk. All of this for like $6-7 worth of meal plan? What a great deal.
VT's special event dinners were awesome. Here's a recent fun sounding event:
Medieval Feast and Faire
http://www.online.studentprograms.vt.edu/feast/menu.php
P.S. Did you know there's a VT chef food blog?
http://www.innatvirginiatech.com/blog/
Josh Baugher at 12:29AM on 04/10/08
It's the same at all of those schools. I'm at Dartmouth, and it's truly ridiculous.
GhaleonQ at 1:24AM on 04/10/08
I'm light years out of college, but used to work in the foodservice biz on the supplier/vendor side. Duke was a customer of mine and they have a freshman campus that is off main campus, closer to town (or they did at one point...this was 8 years ago.) The dining hall for these freshman was beyond any expectation I'd ever had for institutional food: the decor was hip & trendy, the ethnic and gourmet menus each day were varied and well-done. It seems no expense was spared anywhere. Nicer than most restaurants I go to these days! I'm sure it's only gotten better with the continued rise in tuition.
My husband extends fellow Rock Chalk congratulations to you, Adam.
MrsBurns at 10:55AM on 04/10/08
A wood burning pizza oven on campus. Crazy!
It's in the pasta place, though, so I probably won't ever eat any.
ikimashokie at 8:12PM on 04/10/08
PLEASE PLEASE COME TO BROWN!!
It sucks that once your school has the Ivy reputation, it thinks (and ok, pretty much rightly so) that it doesn't need fancy-schmancy dining hall food to lure you in.
'Cept for Cornell, of course. They NEED those famous chefs to offset the middle-of-nowhereness and the suicide rate.
Pammeh at 2:11AM on 04/11/08
Oh, and that 'farmer's markets at Brown'? LIES. Well, kinda. They disappeared once the weather got chilly and have yet to return. Plus, it's not the same because you can't buy that stuff off the meal plan--you have to shell out extra money.
Pammeh at 2:12AM on 04/11/08
I chose my second year dorm based on the food. Alas it went to waste because I didn't factor in the awesome Korean restaurant right across the street. It's siren song caused me to spend money I didn't have and forget about the dorm meals I had already paid for.
maggiehc at 7:15PM on 04/11/08