Dining at Rose Hill

At Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, there are a bunch of options to satisfy any craving!  There are five main places where students go to have a meal with their friends.  The main spot for most underclassmen is the Marketplace.  The Marketplace is located in the McGinley Center and serves as a social hub where most students gather in between and after classes. It seves a vast assortment of foods!  You can have almost anything including tacos, pasta, salad, pizza, and cereal just to name a few.



Students enjoying a meal in the Marketplace



Another popular spot is The Grille.  The Grille is located in the same building as the O’Hare residence hall.   There, students can get smoothies, soup, salads, and wraps.  One of the most popular items is the buffalo chicken wrap.  What’s special about The Grille is that it is open until 1 AM.  Many students venture there for a snack during long nights of studying!  Underneath Queen’s Court is SubConnection.  There, students can get sandwiches made for them and purchase other snacks like chips and ice cream.  Also located in SubConnection is Auntie Anne’s pretzels.  For just a meal swipe, students can get a lemonade and pretzel of their choice!

One of my personal favorite spots on campus is Cosi.  Cosi is located beneath the upperclassmen apartments in Campbell.  Cosi serves specialty salads, sandwiches, and pizzas.  For most students, Cosi offers a change of pace.  It has more of a restaurant atmosphere as opposed to a college campus spot! Dagger John’s is yet another hot spot for students.  Located in the basement of McGinley, Dagger John’s consists of Panda Express, Starbucks, and Jamba Juice! 

That One Year We Learned to Cook...

Yum!

Family dinners with friends!

This past fall, I moved into Walsh Hall for my junior year and opted not to get a meal plan because each room in this apartment-style residence hall has its own kitchen. My roommates and I were eager to learn how to live like *real* adults and prepare each meal ourselves.

The challenge over the summer before move-in was coordinating who would bring what – we didn't understand what we would need and quickly realized we needed to figure out some system of dividing the purchases to avoid all bringing the same thing. Even so, when we settled in at the start of the year, we still somehow managed to each bring pans but forget to bring a paper towel holder…

Fresh pasta from Arthur Ave.

Staying cozy during the snowstorm.

My friends and I heard anecdotes from others about how difficult sharing an apartment could be, but we never really felt the stresses of having both private and public space to take care of, especially since we were already so close before moving in together. We quickly figured out a schedule as to when each person would be responsible for making dinners, washing dishes, cleaning various parts of the apartment, and even making the communal pot of coffee in the morning! It suddenly felt like we were our own little family, and, when our own families came to visit, they were always pleasantly surprised at how responsibly we managed our home away from home.

Dining hall trip!

Every so often, I still stop by the Marketplace – the buffet-style dining hall in McGinley – for a quick bite if I’m in a rush between classes or if I’m meeting a friend. In some ways, I really miss the convenience of on-campus dining (and I really did grow quite fond of the steamed veggies over rice at the vegan station!), but having my own kitchen and being able to make my own meals inevitably made me feel a lot more capable of taking care of myself. This year, my roommates and I learned to grocery shop, pick out fresh produce, make tons of healthy meals, and really bonded over this new level of maturity that we’ve reached.  

Burger night!

Sitting down for a “family” dinner at the end of a long day of classes will always be one of my most cherished Fordham memories.

Club Spotlight! Fordham Student Culinary Council

SCC Members during their Club Fair!

One club that is unique to Fordham is the Fordham Student Culinary Council. They serve as a liaison between Sodexo, Fordham’s food supplier, and Fordham’s students. Because members of the club serve as liaisons between the company and the Fordham community at large, they actually get paid! The members have a choice between receiving either Declining Balance Dollars (also known as DCB; students can use these at any of our retail locations on campus like Cosi or Panda Express) or a check for their work. Within the club, there are five different committees: the Marketplace, Marketing, Nutrition, Sustainability, and Retail. Each of these committees consists of a group of students to discuss innovative ideas for how to improve their specific areas. 

One of my friends, Allie St. Angelo, serves on the Executive Board as the Nutrition Committee Co-Chair. As the Nutrition Co-Chair, she has biweekly meetings with Sodexo management to talk about updates from her weekly committee meetings. Her group is in charge of making campus have as many nutritious and healthy options as possible. She also works with Melanie Ordway, Fordham’s registered dietitian. The dietitian is one of Fordham Dining’s many resources to help students live a healthy lifestyle.

The famous Smoothie Bike!

She told me about one of their upcoming events. In a couple of weeks, they will have a Thanksgiving Dinner in the Marketplace. They will set up tables with different traditional Thanksgiving foods as well as fun Thanksgiving-themed activities. They might even bring out the Smoothie Bike! This is a bike that powers a blender, so you can make a smoothie while you exercise. Personally, I can’t wait for the SCC Thanksgiving dinner. SCC always puts on delicious, fun events that I look forward to. Last year, I even won a Google Nexus 7 tablet during a Scavenger Hunt that they put on!

Another fun event put on by SCC - a cupcake decorating contest!

Follow @fordhamSCC and @fordham_dining on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to hear about what they’re doing and see pictures of all their events!

All photos in this article are courtesy of @fordhamSCC on Instagram.