Kevin Niparko is making sense: Never Collis

During my junior year, Dartmouth college shut down the Collis student center for a major rehab. They reopened the building halfway through my senior year, and gave the campus a pool hall, a larger and more accessible function room, and a decent on campus pub. But the food at Collis Common Ground was as inedible as it was when I first arrived on campus. Hippie food.

The today's edition of The Dartmouth, Kevin Niparko '11 writes that not much as changed over the past 15 years:

I’ve had this Collis debate with so many people (females), I decided I would do myself (and all men on this campus) a favor and explain why Collis Cafe is not an attractive option for anything but breakfast (and maybe a midnight snack). I’m always dumbfounded when I walk into Collis and see the hordes of Collis-extremists fighting over the last piece of orange poppy seed tea bread, or chewing balsamic vinegar-soaked lettuce like Peter Rabbit. Have our collective campus taste buds really become so dysfunctional that we willingly resign ourselves to Collis’ flavorless foods?

For lunch, our Collis options are made-to-order sandwiches, stir-fry and salad. The sandwich selection at Collis is insultingly limited. It ranks last among our College’s sandwich stations, with “specialty” bread straight from the supermarket that you can’t even get toasted. As for stir-fries, every time I get one, I’m reminded of week-old Chinese food. The chicken is Blimpie quality, and the rice it’s served on is bland and overcooked.

Hey, hippies have the eat, too. I think. I've never really paid that much attention. And I'm glad that Collis is part of the campus dining mix. But Mr. Diparko explains very well why me, and I, would prefer to meet somewhere else for lunch.