At Westminster, many students view lunch time as the most important time of the day. Students have time to hang out with their friends and take a break from all of their schoolwork. Westminster has three different locations around campus that serve food to high school students: Brewers Café in Hawkins Hall, Guan Café in Barge Commons, and Malone Dining Hall in Pressly Hall. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages that create the question of deciding where to have lunch each day. So, as rising 9th graders, we decided to draw our own conclusions about these three and clue you all in on which Café really is the best on campus.
Guan Café, the fanciest of the three, serves many different pastries, breakfast foods, lunch foods, and even has a rotation of special items that are exclusive to Guan. We will admit, while conducting our “very serious culinary research” we may have indulged our desire to go here a few too many times. Some of their most popular foods are their cookies, their croissants, and their chillers. The chillers (ginger ale and flavored syrup drinks) are made in-house at Guan. Those chillers are their specialty, and, as self-proclaimed food connoisseurs, we can say that they are absolutely fantastic.
While the food is very good, their prices are the highest of the cafes on campus, and they have a more limited amount of food than the other places around campus, selling out of multiple items each day. We might have broken the bank just a little bit at Guan. Sometimes Guan can also feel removed from the rest of campus and students might not want to walk all the way to Barge Commons for a quick lunch. Nevertheless, Guan is the place that you will find us on most days (as long as we still have enough to spend there).
Brewers Café, closer to the heart of campus, has larger food items, making it a more suitable option for lunchtime. They have a hot bar with options that differ from the food served in Malone, giving students a broader choice of meals when lunch time comes around. We found that the food there is a nice change from Malone’s menu, with the quality also staying strong. Brewers, located in the bottom Hawkins Hall, is right next to Pressly. Many classes take place in those two buildings, making Brewers a convenient place for students. Around lunch time Brewers fills up with students getting food and then heading off to their next class.
However, Brewers runs on a schedule, opening and closing at certain times. They have specific times when they serve breakfast, lunch, and their after-hours menu. We found ourselves out of luck many times when trying to conduct our “very serious culinary research.” We didn’t know their schedule, so they were closed multiple times when we went. While Brewers may have a diverse range of food items, if students come at the wrong time, they may not have some of their food items, even if they still have some left over from earlier in the day.
Finally, at the very center of Westminster’s food system sits Malone Dining Hall. They serve lunch every day for Middle and High School students. We are very familiar with this particular location, but we were very surprised to find out that they also supply many of the food items in Brewers Café and Guan. Workers at Malone Dining Hall arrive at 6:00 in the morning to get lunch ready for more than 1000 people. Malone is on the bottom floor of Pressly Hall, which puts it right in the center of campus. It also connects to the tunnel going across campus to the Blake Center and the Middle School, making it the most convenient choice for many students (and the only choice for us middle students). They also have the widest range of food options for students, from the main hot bar all the way to a yogurt bar.
While we did conduct “very serious culinary research,” we cannot come to a definitive conclusion about which one is truly the best. Although we have our opinions about our favorite, we decided to interview 50 high school students about their preferences. The results came back, with about 30% of students preferring Guan Café, about 27% preferring Brewers and, with about 43% of the total vote, is Malone Dining Hall.
This information may come as a surprise to middle school students, as many dream of the day in which they can choose what to eat for lunch. However, it seems as if you can’t beat the OG. Malone was the first dining hall built at Westminster, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be giving up the title of the best cafeteria anytime soon.