After immense pressure from the Carleton student body, the Carleton Administration has released a ranked list of the top two dining halls on campus.
The ranking system is based on a variety of criteria in order to get a holistic view of the dining halls, including how much it costs to staff, how much it costs to supply with food, the management fee that Bon Appétit charges and miscellaneous operating costs.
Here it is:
1. East Dining Hall
2. West Dining Hall
According to CSA Budget Committee, East Dining Hall (also known as the Language and Dining Center—or LDC) spends approximately $100 a day on food—on an expensive day, where they don’t reuse the least popular lunch item as another dinner entrée. A point of pride for this budgeteer was that these expensive days happen only about half the time per year.
“This ranking makes me want to punt Lyman,” said one angered student. “The windows really don’t make a difference at a school this far north, and as a grown man I can serve myself pasta.”
“I go back and forth on this one,” said an off-board senior. “On one hand the managers at LDC and door behind the desk are really nice, but on the other hand the door by the Tea Room at Burton is really helpful.”
The national director of Bon App was interviewed, but it became pretty clear about threefourths of the way through that they can’t tell the difference between the two when they started ranting about having to pay student workers in something besides food.
“Every time I step into LDC a little bit of me dies, but at least it’s better than Burton,” said Pete Za ’21.
“Burton has better pizza,” said a certain LDC employee who frequently works the “Chopsticks and Woks” section.
“It really surprised us how much people care about minor food preferences and walking distance—I mean, both halls serve pretty much the exact same food everyday,” said a member of the administration who probably eats restaurant or home-cooked food everyday. “I just don’t see how having one different serving station of offerings can change how people feel about a whole dining hall.”
“No question here, it’s clearly LDC. Burton is a dungeon without any natural sunlight, which is what gives me energy,” said a plant with no taste buds.