Over this past summer, Cabrini College has done some major renovations to the dining halls that are meant for the students to love. Some of these exciting changes include a new salad bar, six-person booths, new flooring and lighting, a deli bar and new utensils.
“Last year I felt like it looked like a high school cafeteria; now it seems up to a college level,” John Eddings, pre-med biology major, said.
The students seem to be enjoying the new look, however some students feel that it is difficult to find seating. This is despite only 19 less seats than the older design.
Aside from the new look, the dining services website has also made some changes. To see what’s for dinner on a given day go to Cabrini Dining, to find out what’s being served before you get there.
Some students had less than positive remarks. “I don’t like the fact that you only get 15 minutes to take your food to go, because sometimes the lines are really long,” Eddings said. Kathryn Dunlap, sophomore, also mentioned the new style of “grab-and-go” and said that it’s much more difficult this year than it was in the past.
Now when students want to remove food from the Market Place, they are given a ticket. They then bring the ticket to the back of the room where the grills are and give it to one of the chefs, who gives them their containers in exchange. There is a spot on the ticket for the chef to write the time that the ticket was given to them.
When asked about the food, Eddings said, “The food is slightly better, but it still needs work.” Another Cabrini student, sophomore Adrienne Warder, said, “I think they did a lot to change the look but the food hasn’t really changed that much. It’s like painting a haunted house, it just looks nice.”
Some other complaints from students around campus are about the seating arrangements. Many students feel that were was a lot more space to walk around last year, and getting from one side of the room to the other was easy by going in-between tables instead of walking around the edges. “It’s like a maze, all of the tables clump in the middle and it’s like an obstacle you have to get around,” Eddings said.
Another issue students had was with the dining website. Unfortunately, sometimes the website isn’t always accurate about what is being served for a particular meal, which students feel makes the site rather pointless.
Aside from some complaints about the food it seems that students are enjoying the change in scenery and the new comfortable seating. “I think they added a warmer atmosphere to it, and it feels a little bit more mature,” Dunlap said. “It no longer feels like we’re eating in a high school cafeteria.”
