Working ice cream machines, clean tables, a kosher bar and a quiet atmosphere all come together to create the magical Tempe campus dining experience.
Jumping from campus to campus, the difference between the dining halls feels like you are going from the depths of "Dante's Inferno" to the gates of dining hall heaven.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything the non-Tempe dining halls are doing. However, comparing them to the facilities on the Tempe campus is unrealistic.
Tempe campus has more dining halls than the Downtown Phoenix, West Valley and Polytechnic campuses combined. While Tempe does make up around 70% of the student population on campus, the rest of students still deserve similar dining conditions.
Ayan Ahmed, a junior studying medical studies, said the dining hall at the Polytechnic campus is pretty small and "not anything too crazy."
While the other University locations are confined to their singular dining hall, ASU has recently unveiled another residential hall in Tempe with, guess what, the campus' sixth dining hall.
"It's so crazy finding out Tempe has a billion dining halls everywhere," Ahmed said.
Aside from the difference in food quality across campuses, the spaces range in pizzazz and size as well.
Tempe's dining halls are more spacious and modernized. Some have more food stations, which offer a wider variety of options for students.
Jessica Frank, a sophomore studying mechanical engineering, is a Barrett, The Honors College student who lives in Tempe, which means she has access to the glorious Barrett Dining Center.
"My favorite thing about the dining halls is the convenience and the variety of options," Frank said.
She has visited the dining hall in downtown Phoenix and said "it was a good dining hall," but that there is more variety on her home campus.
Good, not great.
However, Kara Fulton, a sophomore studying English and a Barrett student living on the West Valley campus, said she can't scan to get into the Tempe Barrett dining hall facility.
"I am a Barrett student," Fulton said. "I should have all of the same things that every regular Barrett student can have."
If students on different campuses are paying for their meal plans, including Barrett students, they should receive the same quality dining experience.
We have all equally paid a lot of money to be students at this University, and we non-Tempe students deserve a working ice cream machine, unlike the one I try to use in Gordon Commons — the Downtown Phoenix campus' dorm complex for first-year students.
"We have these plastic plates and bowls that are honestly probably older than us," Fulton said.
Ahmed said the Polytechnic hall decor looks old, and not at all renovated like the Tempe dining halls do.
Sun Devil Hospitality said in a statement that the organization values student feedback and has created solutions to fix issues students are facing in dining halls.
According to the statement, more tables have been added to accommodate the amount of students visiting. Damaged furniture has also been removed in order to provide a clean and functional dining environment.
Renovation plans at the West Valley Café, Citrus Dining Hall and other enhancements across campuses are scheduled to improve the overall dining experience at the University, according to the statement.
"While dining halls follow a standard four-week menu cycle, we also tailor offerings to meet the unique preferences of each campus community," the statement said.
While the University is attempting to remedy these complaints, this should not have happened in the first place. I, along with countless other students, should not need to travel to Tempe to have a great dining hall experience.
At the end of the day, give us better tables and please just make my ice cream machine work.
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this column are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Edited by Natalia Rodriguez, George Headley, Sophia Braccio and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at galawre3@asu.edu.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Grace Lawrence is a reporter for the community culture desk at The Arizona State Press. This is her 1st semester working with The State Press.
