As a freshman on campus at Baylor University you are required to purchase a meal plan, or might even just be visiting a son or daughter and want the best experience possible. With the addition of a new dining hall in the newly built Brooks Village one wonders which dining hall offers the superior meal, Memorial, Collins, Penland or Brooks.
It might be helpful to see the strengths through the eyes of a senior and someone who has eaten in the dining everyday for the past three years that Penland is the only choice.
Memorial now houses most of the freshman and offers a wide variety of food every day. However, the service during anything less than the dead hours is intolerably slow. Burgers are cooked on a flat metal grill which takes about twice as long as the flame grill at Penland.
While Memorial does offer a variety of food they lack a strong variety of main dishes. Expect a variation of meatloaf or roasted chicken every week in addition to the static pizza, grill and Asian cuisine stations.
This unfortunate lack of variety affects all three separate meal times. Breakfast consists of omelets, eggs and hash browns which compared to Penland’s made to order croissant sandwiches, breakfast burritos and large selection of pastries looks paltry. Finally, Memorial’s atmosphere lacks a little something for the person who just wants to sit down and watch some tv with a meal. They have no form of entertainment unless you watching people walk by Draper.
Collins is the smallest dining hall on campus and what most people do not realize competes with Penland a lot better than Memorial. They offer a few things you don’t see in any of the other dining halls such as crystal light on tap and a fooseball table. Collins also prides itself on great “American” food, their pizza is thick and cheesy and corndogs are on the menu almost every day. Unfortunately Collins is just too small and while they do have good food they just don’t have the demand for a wide variety and their menu remains stagnant.
The newly designed Brooks hall is the x factor in the Baylor Dining Services game. Designed after the dining halls at Oxford, and looking like Hogwarts the Great Hall has a chance to set itself apart in service and selection. Unfortunately like all new businesses they still have plenty of kinks to work out before they can become a true long term option.
Penland on the other hand combines all of the best features of the dining halls to offer a service that is bar none the best. Being the largest dining hall Penland offers food of every kind every day.
Breakfast has burritos, made to order sandwiches and a large variety of homemade pastries in addition to the traditional egg, hash brown and biscuit breakfast. For lunch you can choose anything from fresh roasted chicken to quesadillas to hot wings. Whether you enjoy sitting with a big group of friends or just watching a game while you sip some soda Penland has it all
