There was an insane amount of hair in my food, and it isn’t the first time it’s happened. Biting into my food and seeing full strands of hair is ridiculous.
Service
Dine in
Meal type
Lunch
Food: 1
I have been coming here for the last 3 years, because it is convenient between classes. The place has seemed to get worse every year. Food is hit or miss (mainly miss). The price to get in is insane for the value of a single meal, unless you plan to stay long enough to have two. It is, however, one of the better places to eat on campus. Chartwells is awful.
Food honestly isn't that good, the quality has definitely gone down a lot since my first year back in 2016-2017 when I had a meal plan and honestly the fact that we don't get to serve ourselves near as much kinda sucks too. Bring back the ice cream machine also.
Food: 3
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 4
Usually no lines and at least you have lots to choose from if you don't like one, two, or three of the options. It's not great but it is better than plenty of other universities chow hall.
Best place to get food on campus, but also has the most limited hours.
A few years ago when The Commons was run by the University before they privatized it, the food and service were both really remarkably good for a campus dining hall. Since that time, both seem to have declined consistently. I don't know, maybe they're temporarily off their game because of COVID, but lunch today was pretty underwhelming. Pretty much everything was cold, except the ice cream, which was out of order. One notable exception was the soup, which was the correct temperature, and really very good. Recommend the soup.
More infuriating than the lackluster food service, though, was their COVID protocol. This is an indoor dining hall, serving a ton of people in one enclosed space who definitionally are not wearing masks (because they're eating). The way they have chosen to address the potential risk associated with that situation is by replacing all of the cups, plates, and utensils with disposable trash. There is very little evidence of surface transmission of COVID to begin with, and I'm 100% positive that it's nothing an industrial dishwasher couldn't handle, so really this is just a colossal waste of paper and plastic. It's really offensive, especially given hundreds of unmasked people breathing the same air is dramatically more risky than washed plates. To cap off that irony, though, all of the food is self-service, so everyone ends up touching the same ladles and spatulas anyway, making the whole point totally moot. The whole situation speaks of token face-saving gestures and cost-cutting. Get it together.
I have spent some time here in The Commons, and this just might become my main place for breakfast. Although it's old, it still sports some nice architecture and plenty of good food, although the wait times in line tend to be long when there are so many people. In addition, there are flat screen televisions people can watch while eating, and more often than not, there will be music playing through the speakers. The staff serving the food is nice.
They have gotten better this semester. It is an all you can eat buffet, and the food is okay for college food. The plates can look a little dirty from time to time, but I have always found clean ones. It is an okay place on a college campus.
One star is more than the commons deserves, half the time my food is cold within 5 minutes of sitting down, if not there's a good chance it's inedible anyways. I came in yesterday and felt guilty for throwing away a plate of cold and disgusting food. Even calling it subpar at best would be a compliment. Very rarely do I have a good eating experience here.
There is a decent selection here, but I wouldn't come here if I didn't have a meal plan that had a finite number of meal swipes. If you have an all FLEX plan, it is extremely expensive to come here. The food is decent quality, but it is hit or miss as with any school food.
