A Guide to Barnumbia's Dining Halls
One of the questions I’m asked most often about college is “how’s the food?” Of course, New York is a city known for the quantity and quality of its food, but on a college budget eating out every night isn’t exactly realistic. I love exploring New York’s culinary scene, and I also love cooking meals for myself, but dining halls make my life much easier. As a freshman, I used the dining halls every day, and even as an upperclassman with a kitchen dining halls are great for times when I’m too busy or just don’t feel like cooking. Barnard has two dining halls, Hewitt and Diana, as well as full access to Columbia’s three dining halls, Ferris, John Jay, and JJ’s Place. We can also use our meal plan at the two cafes on Barnard’s campus, Liz’s Place and Peet’s. There are dining options for everyone, regardless of what dietary restrictions or preferences they have, and there’s literally always a dining hall open. Whether you want to grab a coffee before your early class, or it’s 1 am and you’ve been studying all night and you’re really craving mozzarella sticks, there’s something for everyone at our dining halls. You’ll figure out which dining halls you prefer once you get here, but for now, here’s a breakdown on the highlights of each of them.
HEWITT DINING HALL
Hewitt is probably the first dining hall you’ll go to at Barnard, because it’s where the NSOP meals are held. It’s super convenient--the entrance is located in Barnard Hall, although it’s technically under Hewitt Hall, hence the name. I think Hewitt is the best at comfort food like mac and cheese or mashed potatoes, although they have a wide variety of other food too.
My favorite food: Recently they’ve starting doing a really good pesto pizza.
DIANA CENTER CAFE
Everyone has their favorite dining hall, and Diana is mine. Diana is different from all the other dining halls in that instead of being buffet-style, it’s more a-la-carte adjacent. It’s perhaps most well-known for its smoothie station, which I swear by. It also has sandwiches, a grill, a rotating station that features different kinds of food a few times a semester, and a new taco station that I love.
My favorite food: Smoothies, although recently the quesadilla has been giving them a run for their money.
JOHN JAY DINING HALL
Just about every single college has a dining hall that they boast looks like Hogwarts. John Jay is that dining hall for Columbia. It’s pretty standard dining hall food, with everything from pasta to burgers to these grain/salad bowls that I like to get when it’s been a bit too long since I’ve had something healthy. I’m not much of an omelette person, but they do have an omelette station at breakfast if that’s something you’re into.
My favorite food: Pierogies!!
FERRIS DINING HALL
In my humble opinion, Ferris does the best breakfast of all the dining halls. They have some of the best biscuits I’ve ever eaten, an avocado toast station, plus breakfast potatoes and bagels and all the normal stuff. They also do a solid lunch and dinner. Every few weeks, one of the dining halls will have a special day where all the food is centered around a certain theme, and Ferris really goes all out for it when it’s their turn, so that’s always fun. My personal favorite is milkshake day, which is truly truly wonderful if you survive the line.
My favorite food: There’s a great dessert station, where I get their cheesecake a lot! Also the biscuits are genuinely life changing.
JJ’S PLACE
JJ’s Place’s main claim to fame is that it’s open almost all day, every day, only closing for two horus in the morning. It’s pretty classic late-night food (although there’s also a largely-ignored salad bar), with french fries and mozzarella sticks and the like, so many students find themselves here when the 2 am craving for greasy eats hits. They also have pancakes and quesadillas! My most memorable JJ’s experience happened my freshman year, when my roommate and I camped out for two hours and ate 15 fried mac and cheese triangles each. Speaking as an older and wiser junior, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing this, but the option does exist.
My favorite food: It used to be the mac and cheese triangles. I have not been able to look at one the same way since I ate 15 of them in one sitting. My new favorite is their occasional mashed potato quesadilla, which sounds gross but somehow is sometimes exactly what I need.