Suffolk University’s dining halls are, in many ways, in a strange position. Being in the middle of Downtown Boston, there are a lot of competitors for students’ appetites. For a smaller university like Suffolk without many dining halls, students are keen to go elsewhere.
Despite this, the biggest issues with Suffolk’s dining halls don’t have anything to do with the food they serve. While it’s obviously not quite as good as a home-cooked meal, Suffolk’s seven dining halls provide options that are at least bearable, and in many cases, have meals which are well-liked by the student body, like the sandwiches at Café 73.
Most of the time, the dining hall problems arise when students try to go to the dining halls.
The most obvious problem is the dining hall hours. According to the official Dine On Campus site, only three of Suffolk’s seven options are open after 5 p.m. every weekday; Sal’s Pizza at One Court, 150 Tremont Cafe and Samia Cafe.
This means that options for dinner, when people are expecting the most variety, are pretty limited. The same group of dining halls are also the only ones open over the weekend, albeit with shortened hours, including not opening until 10 a.m., which precludes getting breakfast.
The frustrating hours do not stop there, the Maki Market at Sawyer and the Samia Coffee Bar, are closed on the weekends and on Fridays. Oh, did I mention that this assumes that the operating hours given by the university are even correct? Having had an 8 a.m class on Fridays in Samia, I have gone down to the Samia Coffee Bar to find it open, despite all official written sources saying that it should be closed. There simply is no consistency.
Additionally, Suffolk’s weekend dining hall schedule has dining halls close earlier, not later, on weekend nights. At a university where students enjoy access to Boston’s vibrant nightlife, it makes absolutely no sense that things are closing earlier on the weekends rather than later.
Suffolk’s dining hall hours are simply the beginning of the issues they have. There are plenty of other issues Suffolk needs to address if they want to have more successful dining halls. Whether it be how expensive the food is, the fact that Suffolk hasn’t figured out how to make 150 Tremont or Miller’s dining halls available to all students or Cafe 73’s design creating an unpleasant waiting experience. There is a lot that needs to be fixed at the operational level before we even consider talking about improving the food.
But how do we fix this? The main way is to simply let the people in charge know and give feedback on issues to those who have control over the dining halls. At the Student Government Association’s second meeting of the year, Director of Dining Joe Salvaggio, made it clear that his team was open to taking feedback on the dining hall experience at Suffolk, particularly through their Voice to Vision survey during the month of October.
Additionally, providing input through SGA’s Dining Committee, which as the name suggests will deal with dining hall related matters, will also be effective in creating change, as they are able to officially endorse proposed changes to dining halls on behalf of the student body. Their meeting times have not been announced yet, but will be announced soon on the SGA Instagram (@suffolksga).
Least to say, it’s time for change in our dining halls, but we need collective action to do it.
