Dining Halls Tips!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Cruz
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<p>Fun facts to help you make the most of UCSC dining! I mostly attend the east side dining halls, so if anyone has any tips to add for west side, I'd be grateful. :)</p>

<p>At the start of each quarter, you get 50 flexi dollars that can be spent at the various cafes and marts around campus. Learn to make the best of them! Most of the cafes that take them are open late. </p>

<p>There is a special "sushi bar" that rotates through the dining halls every week. It's a lunch time only thing, usually found between 12:30 and 2pm. Find out which day your local dining hall has it, and feast upon the bounty. There's usually vegan and vegetarian sushi options too.</p>

<p>Every dining hall has a salad bar and sandwich bar, stocked at all times except for breakfast. </p>

<p>Speaking of breakfast, it's worth waking up for. Fresh bagels, donuts, muffins, and countless other options.</p>

<p>The clam chowder is amazing, and is served at most all dining halls every friday. </p>

<p>Recently, the school has introduced "Meatless Monday" and "Beefless Wednesday". Beefless Wednesday is perfectly pleasant if you're an omnivore, but you might want to avoid Meatless Monday. They rotate through the dining halls.</p>

<p>Dining halls stick loosely to the posted menus: UC</a> Santa Cruz Dining - Weekly Menus
It also has a handy list for the taco/slider/indian/etc bars and sushi schedule.</p>

<p>Cowell/Stevenson: Has a "Cowell Creamery" special every week or so. It's a simpler version of Cold Stone Creamery, and it it fsking delicious. Prepare to wait in line, though. They also have an omelet station where you can order a custom omelet through lunch time, usually.</p>

<p>Crown/Merrill: They have a corner that connects to Banana Joe's (mini-mart/cafe). They often serve specialties out of there. Amazing burgers, namely. They seem to enjoy coming up with new varieties. They also serve really interesting ice cream flavors lunch through dinner. Purple cow (grape/vanilla), coffee-bacon, avacado, honey, tiki pineapple (just like at disneyland!) to name a few I've seen. If you're lucky and stay until closing, you might get some free stuff from Banana Joe's that's past the sell-by date but still perfectly good. </p>

<p>9/10: If you like consistency, 9/10 is your man. Burgers, pizza, and (made to order!)burritos around the clock. Around meal times, say 12-2 and 5-8, they usually have 2-3 other dishes available. Unlike other dining halls they are not serve-yourself, the items are dished out onto plates and left for you to pick up. They also serve breakfast through lunch time on weekends.</p>

<p>8/Oakes: Bakery and piano. Awesome enough to make the trek across campus for the food at late night.</p>

<p>Banana Joe's: Sells AMAZING smoothies. Most of their dishes are pretty darn good, and a decent value. Variety ranges from burgers to wraps to vegan foods. Also a lot of coffee items. They give you a boatload of fries if you get a combo. They bring in items from the C8 bakery. In the way of mini-mart items, it's probably the only place on campus to get milk other than the quickmart by the bookstore. Lots of organic/local foods, though a bit on the pricey side. They also sell some personal care items like shampoo.</p>

<p>Tacos Moreno: $6 will get you a burrito big enough to keep you full through an all-nighter. A blessing, that. They sell a huge variety of drinks and snack foods, including Mexican Coca-Cola!</p>

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<p>If any thread should ever be stickied, this would be it. Any good options for Mac n’ Cheese on campus?</p>

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<p>Which dining hall is best for Vegetarians?</p>

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<p>@needforspeed: Mac n’ Cheese makes a fairly regular appearance in the dining halls. It’s rare to go a week without seeing it. I don’t know of any cafes that sell it as a dish, though.</p>

<p>@FutureEEMajor: 9/10 is probably a good pick. I see veggie options at other dining halls, but how many varies from day to day. 9/10 always has veggie burgers and usually a vegetarian pizza option. Possibilities at the taqueria bar include plenty of meatless combinations. Most every dish they offer at meal times is served alongside a meatless version. If not, you can ask the server to dish it up for you minus the meat portion.</p>

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<p>^Thanks :D</p>

<p>On the Dining Hall menu they had something about Flexy $ and Meal plan. Whats the difference? Which one is better to get?</p>

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<p>If you live in the dorms, you’ll get either a 7-day or 5-day meal plan. Your choice. All-you-can-eat, as many entries into the dining hall a day as you want. However, the 5-day doesn’t include weekends. </p>

<p>If you live in an apartment, you have the option of a 55 meal plan. 55 meals over the course of the quarter. 75 meals is an option if you live in the University Inn off campus. These meals can be used at the dining hall, or for the equivalent of $8 at some of the campus cafes. </p>

<p>All meal plans receive $50, which can be used like real money at any of the campus cafes for hot food or other items.</p>

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<p>What places should we avoid? I went to spring spotlight and purchased some nachos from the Mexican restaurant at Merril I believe. The Nachos were not that good, especially for 7 bucks. Pretty interesting info Liesel. Thanks</p>

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<p>Just a note that you can get the 5-day or 7-day plan in the apartments as well. The 55 plan is just the minimum plan you have to have. You can also purchase additional meals if you run low. Meals expire at the end of each quarter. A good place to blow these is Banana Joe’s to purchase grocery items if the quarter is nearly over and you still have a good number of them left. Or be generous and take guests in to eat.</p>

<p>That $50 in flexis is something you are required to purchase with your meal plan and is not just a gift. It is a charge billed to you separately from your meal plan. You can also add additional flexis if need be.</p>

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<p>They have gluten free stuff too, correct? If so, is it any good? That’s not a necessity for me, but I sometimes like to have the option.</p>

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<p>I’ve seen gluten free things, but I haven’t tried most of them since I like almost nothing in terms of food in general (with or without gluten). For things not labeled, but often gluten free normally, you would have to ask (there could be a cross contamination issue for things they don’t label).</p>

<p>If you had this specific diet concern as a necessity, then you could just talk to dining services and they would be able to accommodate you.</p>

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<p>with the 7-day-thing are students able to eat at any dining hall or just the hall that goes with their housing??</p>

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<p>you’ll be allowed access to all 5 dining halls regardless of your college affiliation…super convenient and great way to keep from getting bored of the food : )</p>

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<p>Haha, pretty much. Lots of variety to be had.</p>

<p>@arkanephantom: That they do. In fact, in Crown dining today I noticed that they added a special refrigerated section. It has some gluten free bread and tortillas in it. :)</p>

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<p>I’m going to be honest with you guys. Most people get sick and tired of dining hall food by winter quarter. It seems like as the year progresses the food and selection gets worse. Most of my friends are getting the 55 meal plan because there tired of dining hall food. At first it might seem awesome but trust me, you get tired of it.</p>

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<p>I’m on my fifth quarter here (plus a summer session) and I’m not sick of the food yet ;)</p>

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<p>I actually think the dining halls at UCSC are pretty great. I mean there are certainly other universities with better food, but I don’t think I ever got sick of dining hall food. I think the important thing is to switch it up every so often. Most of my friends who got sick of the dining hall food were the ones who just kept going to the pizza bar or taqueria to get the same things all the time.</p>

<p>Try out some of the entrees for the day, salad bar, or even try some of the vegan foods (I’ve had surprisingly great food at that station before). You can also make your own creations like asking the hamburger station to give you some of their grilled chicken so you can make a salad and etc. If you really get bored of the food, try hitting up another dining hall and try out some of their specials.</p>

<p>Also, you don’t need to use all your Flexis. You get $50 of Flexi dollars a quarter (that money is added to your student billing) and it rolls over every quarter. I sometimes went to Tacos Moreno, Banana Joe’s, Owl’s Nest, or the perk to grab some food with friends and still had about $60 remaining after freshman year. I did use up an extra $40 of that during soph year when I didn’t have a meal plan (lived off-campus), but I had the remaining $20 sent back to me via check. It’s still cash you paid for, so you aren’t required to spend it.</p>

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<p>This is my third quarter here and i haven’t quite gotten sick of the food yet. At first it was pretty damn awesome, but now its just whatever. I don’t crave it, but im never turned off by it. Like someone else said, switch it up by trying the daily entrees and visit the various dining halls on a regular basis and you’ll be fine</p>

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<p>We’ll see what happens after my last two quarters here before I graduate, but I never switch it up much. However, I was one of those kids who carried the exact same thing to school for lunch for six years straight. I was very upset when pieces of my lunch were altered. Yes, I was a super high maintenance kid ;)</p>

<p>But I do completely agree: switch it up if you get bored easily with food. There’s a lot of varied options especially when you start exploring the other dining halls. My mom loves to come eat on campus when she visits… I’m fairly sure a large part of it is she doesn’t have to do the cooking or the dishes, though.</p>

<p>There are weekly menus that are posted on the dining website.</p>

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<p>Yeah, a lot of keeping from being bored is trying new things. Always check the salad/sandwich bar, sometimes there are treasures hidden there. One time I got surprised when they had tapioca instead of cottage cheese one day. Delicious.</p>

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<p>I guess it’s because I eat in Cowell/Stevenson dining all the time. It’s basically the same cycle of food every week and sometimes they have some very weird plates. I tried College Eight and Oakes the other day and it was pretty good. College 9/10 has basically the same thing for late night every day. I haven’t tried kresge/merril dining hall or porter/kresge so maybe I’ll try switching it up.</p>