Is that where the list ends however? Is the café just a stop in a busy student’s day out of sheer necessity, or do students actually go because of the delicious food or perhaps enticing prices? Have the improvements made by Sodexo been felt by the Fordham community? The answer seems to be no. The café is not a crowd pleaser with the majority of the students at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and the “improvements” appear to have had minimal impact. In fact, the food at Fordham has been ranked among the worst in the country by various outlets. For example, out of all the colleges in the U.S. Fordham was given the honor of being ranked #19 for the category “Is it Food?” by the Princeton Review. If you’re not sure what this means, I’ll make it simple for you—it’s not a positive thing.

Some might argue that people are just overreacting or being picky. The food at Fordham really isn’t that bad, they might say. And they’re right. It’s not. It’s not horrifically inedible or disgusting. It’s just not very good. Certain adjectives that come to mind when thinking of really good food might be savory, decadent, flavorful, rich or hey, just plain tasty. None of these adjectives have ever come to my mind when eating the food from the cafeteria. The food CAN be good, and I’ve heard the wraps and sandwiches are pretty decent. Most of the time though, I would describe the food as being pretty run-of-the-mill.

What is probably the main contributor to the overall negative connotation Fordham students associate with the quality of the food is the pricing. The prices of the food in the café are pretty ridiculous. I usually get chicken tenders and French fries, for lack of being adventurous. This combined with a medium soda is close to nine dollars, a lot for some broke college student, soon to be much broker after getting a bite to eat at the café. The overcharging isn’t exorbitant but it definitely raises some eyebrows at the register when everything gets added up, or at the very least, it raises mine.

The thing that gets this reporter the most is the fact that whoever is in charge of the pricing charges as though we, the students, are eating at an actual restaurant. If you’re going to charge that way, then it is respectfully requested that the food be restaurant quality, or at least diverse. Going into the café, there are very few options to peruse. A few soups, chicken tenders and fries; small containers of pasta; a salad bar; and a few hot choices including wraps are basically it. There’s water among other bottled drinks, and fruit bowls. A few feet across the café you can get sandwiches and ice cream.

One would think that the campus’ own venue might cater to their students a little more, if not with a vast array of quality food, then with fair prices or a good meal plan.

There is no meal plan at FCLC. The closest thing there is to a meal plan is being forced to put $800 on your card for each semester that you’re a resident freshman. There are no discounts, there’s no concept of what a “meal” actually consists of, there are no flex points or any type of lingo that would explain how a meal plan is an improvement to just blindly paying for things out of your own pocket with no assistance from the school’s pricing masterminds. I guess the swiping is convenient.

Overall, the food at Fordham is nothing but convenient and so is everything else about it, including the only appealing feature of its meal plan. With the way things are going, soon Alan’s, the deli across the street, might be making more business than the café. Until things are improved, you can look forward to replacing your hungry stomach ache at the Lowenstein Café with a very convenient headache.