My Guide to Eating at UConn

Hi everyone, Jason here,

I remember that when I went on my UConn tour, my guide told me that the dining hall food on campus was “better than Dad’s, but not as good as Mom’s.” Now that I am on campus and eating the dining hall food continuously I can really see how that makes sense.

However with that being said, the dining hall food is generally good. There are certain dishes that have become my favorites. This includes the Italian chicken fingers, baked ziti and chicken Parmesan from Towers Gelfenbein Dining Hall (only Towers, I am convinced that Towers makes a better chicken Parmesan than anywhere else on campus).  Towers is one of eight different dining halls on campus. In my opinion, that is one of the best things about eating at school. Since there are so many dining halls and with each one having different menus each day, it is very easy to find what food I want to eat and where.

All 8 different dining halls

UConn dining services even has a website where they post all of the menus of the different dining halls. They post them up a week in advance. I love to look up what the different dining halls are serving ahead of time so that I can decide on where I want to eat. Also, for each meal, the menus change so if I were to eat at the same dining hall for both lunch and dinner, what I had for lunch would be completely different from what I would eat for dinner.

The model of what McMahon dining hall is going to look like once the renovations are done

Another great part of the UConn dining services is that three of the dining halls, Northwest, McMahon (Currently being renovated as we speak) and Whitney remain open until 10:00 PM. At home I ate dinner relatively late so it is nice for me to have dining halls that I can go to when I am used to eating dinner sometimes at 9:00 PM. Also, the menus for the three dining halls that do stay open late, add an additional grill feature to their menu after 7:00 PM.  A lot of times, the grill options include chicken sandwiches, hamburgers, grilled cheese and wraps. Overall, eating late at UConn is not as hard as one may think. For me getting food has never been a problem considering the dining halls open at 7:00 AM and stay open until 10:00 PM.

If eating at a dining hall is not an option because I am running to a class or meeting, UConn has a system called Grab & Go. This consists of is a sandwich or wrap with a drink and either a cookie, salad or bag of chips. I love the Grab and Go’s because they are very quick to get and eat and they come with the meal plan at no additional cost. Sometimes I will even pick them up for dinner if I just do not feel like going to a dining hall and I have the time to stop at one of the Grab & Go locations on my way back to the dorm.

My favorite Grab & Go meal, the buffalo chicken wrap. So good!

Coming to UConn was a big change in my life and I was worried that eating food was going to become a huge problem because I would not have the time and the food was not going to be good. That is exactly the opposite of how everything turned out for me. I really enjoy eating at UConn because the food is good and easily accessible. I am absolutely pleased with the food I have eaten at UConn.