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Comparable Schools' Campus Dining Grades:
Quick StatsFreshman Meal Plan Requirement
Yes - All students living on campus are required to be on the meal plan.
Off-Campus Places to Use Meal PlanAverage Meal Plan Cost
$421.25 per term
Students living in the houses, except for Avery, will be automatically enrolled in the Feynman meal plan. Avery has its own plan, which is $1,170 per term.
Other Options
- There are several coffee shops associated with the JPL.
College Prowler Take
Caltech is a small campus with essentially four dining hall equivalents. There’s the South Kitchen, the North Kitchen, Avery, and Chandler. The school also has two cafés, the Red Door and the Café at Broad, and a convenience store (or put more accurately, the inconvenience store) which students call the “C-store.” There is also a student-run Coffeehouse. The North and South Kitchens serve lunch and dinner. Lunch is cafeteria style, and generally, there are some pasta, burger, and pizza options. Dinner in the South Kitchens is basically identical to dinner in the North Kitchens. Dinner is comprised of family-style sit-downs at a meal table in each dorm. Students often work as waiters or waitresses and bring food and drinks to and from the kitchens. The food served at dinner is generally okay, but sometimes it includes primarily “beef and gunk.” Gunk here can mean peppers, broccoli, or almost any other vegetable. The North and South Kitchens also have sandwich, salad, and pasta bars as a daily alternative to whatever the kitchen has prepared for that day. Dessert includes anything from pie to cheesecake, and it is good more often than not. Dinner in our houses is rather exciting because every house has traditions. Some of these traditions involve gigantic water jugs. For example, waiters can “dump” or “float” people who do not choose to follow dinner rules. Generally, the rule breaking involves flying food or drinks similar to a scene out of Animal House. Also, different houses do things like themed dinners or themed waiters. One theme that did not turn out well was PMS-ing waitresses night.
Students Speak Out
Love your school more than free food? Hate your school more than term papers?
Somewhere in between? Show the world what YOU think of YOUR school:
Anonymous says:  |
The food’s ‘edible,’ but nothing...
The food’s ‘edible,’ but nothing fancy at all, and it’s without much flavor. |
Anonymous says:  |
The Café at Broad is a decent deli...
The Café at Broad is a decent deli and has really good french fries. The student-run Coffeehouse has good fried foods and sandwiches. The milkshakes are also really good. The problem is that nothing healthy can be found at the Coffeehouse. |
Anonymous says:  |
CDS food at the house dinners is...
CDS food at the house dinners is generally pretty mediocre at best. Some nights, it’s hard to find anything good to eat. CDS prepares some really good meals, but on a scale of one to ten, I would give CDS a four or five. Chandler is pretty good most of the time. The only problem is the variety isn’t very large. You can have a pizza or hamburger only so many times. |
Anonymous says:  |
The food is acceptable but...
The food is acceptable but overpriced. The prices aren’t so much of an issue, though, since there’s a declining balance. We’ve already paid for the board money, so we have to spend it somehow. The food is edible, not weirdly colored, and somewhat good-tasting. It is plentiful at undergraduate house dinners. There are a number of options for lunch, depending on if you want hot entrees, sandwiches, Asian food, food cooked on a grill, or Italian food. |
Anonymous says:  |
The biggest problem is having to...
The biggest problem is having to be on board and eat the same stuff all the time. There are things I really like in Chandler, but eating them every day for two years made me like them less and less. |
Dining Halls
Avery Kitchen Varies Avery House, 1st floor Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–11:30 a.m., 3 p.m.–7 p.m.
Chandler Dining Hall Global variety Adjoined to Ruddock, Lloyd, and Page Houses Monday–Friday 7 a.m.–10:30 a.m., 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
Cirtus Bistro Mediterranean 293 S Holliston Ave. (near Del Mar at Avery House) Monday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Coffeehouse Snack foods Chandler’s Tech Grind Daily 9 p.m.–2 a.m.
Convenience Store Snack foods Next to Chandler Monday–Friday 9:30 a.m.–12 a.m., Saturday–Sunday 11 a.m.–10 p.m.
North Kitchen Varies Adjoined to Ruddock, Lloyd, and Page dining rooms Monday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–1:15 p.m., 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m.
South Kitchen Varies Adjoined to Blacker, Dabney, Fleming, and Ricketts dining rooms Monday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m.
The Café at Broad Deli-style food, pastries, sushi Broad Center Monday–Friday 7:45 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
The Red Door Café Sandwiches, baked goods, coffee, tea Adjacent to Caltech bookstore Monday–Friday 7:45 a.m.–6 p.m.
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