A cup of chai, a choice of breads,
and thou
This past September, Patricia Bando, director
of Boston College Dining Services (BCDS), scanned a recent issue of
the Heights, BC's independent student newspaper, and got a surprise.
"Sometimes I open the Heights and I cringe," says Bando,
explaining resignedly that campus eateries can occasionally become scapegoats
for students' frustrations with other aspects of life. But two weeks
into the school year, Bando found an editorial praising BCDS for coming
up with "a revamped look, more convenient layouts, and . . . new
dishes." The paper's highest approbation was for the Hillside Café,
the year-old dining hall that the Heights called "one of
the most popular hang-out areas" on campus.
The Hillside Café is located in the new
Lower Campus Administration Building, where it shares the first floor
with a branch of the BC Bookstore. The café was initially intended
to complement St. Ignatius Gate, a residence hall still under construction
that will house more than 300 students. Since the nearby Lower Campus
Dining Hall (called "Lower" by most students) was already
doing a high-volume business, the plan was to lure diners to Hillside
over the course of two years. But the migration didn't go as expected.
BCDS projected that the new facility would handle about 1,000 transactions
a day after its opening on Parents' Weekend in fall 2002; instead,
Hillside was tallying 3,500 daily transactions during its weekday hours
of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. within the first two months. It became so popular,
says Bando, that BCDS had to revise the menus in other eateries.
Hillside's appointments are distinctive:
On the perimeter, there are commodious high-back easy chairs, two-seater
cushioned sofas, and faux marble coffee tables; tall round tables with
bar stools—the good kind, with backs—fill one section, and
café-style tables and chairs fill another; cappuccinos and lattes
are served at a crescent-shaped coffee counter.
The café's success owes much to its menu,
especially its warm panini sandwiches and toothsome smoothies. "It
has really good food," says Ashley Hawkins '06, as she picks at
two breadless scoops of tuna piled on cheese slices. The petite blonde
with a sparkly metallic nose piercing elaborates: "I don't like
the bread down here, it's like cranberry, white, and wheat. But I love
the tuna."
Around 12:15 P.M.
on a Thursday in early autumn, the café's 150 seats
were full. Young men with fluffy hair and khaki shorts shared
tables with young women in denim skirts and plastic flip-flops.
Latecomers eyed the packed premises, then snapped plastic
covers over their plates and sauntered out. In a corner, on
a sofa flanked by tall windows, a couple snuggled—she
holding open a copy of the conservative, student-published
Observer (headline: "Educating for Damnation"),
he flipping through an issue of the Heights bearing
the headline "The Fabled Freshman 15." To their
left, a husky male student in a backwards black baseball hat
tossed a potato chip at the open mouth of the blonde female
beside him. It missed, bounced off her cheek, and fell to
the floor.
Amid the ubiquitous communing ("I love my
new apartment—I wish I could telecommute to school"; "You
must've had fun last night because you sure look like it"; "I
was ready to leave for Fidelity, but then I noticed a peanut butter
stain on my shirt"; "He's cute—very Marine-ish";
"It's weird to be doing work when it's so nice outside"),
there was talk about Hillside: "This tuna is soooo good,"
said a young woman to seven companions squished around a table designed
for four.
Shen Chen '06, a cheerful young woman with
a round face and sunglasses on her head, eats lunch at Hillside once
a week. She limits herself deliberately—she loves it here and
doesn't want to grow bored. She's just finishing a New England
Classic—smoked turkey with Vermont cheddar cheese, thin slices
of green apples, and honey mustard sauce on two toasted pieces of cranberry
bread. Served with a pickle and thick, ridged potato chips, the sandwich
is the café's most popular menu item.
Chen says Hillside is the rare campus eatery
where undergraduates feel comfortable eating alone. The café
is located a hard throw from the RecPlex, and she comes here after working
out—as do many other students, judging from their attire. "I
don't like going to Lower by myself. If I did, I would hide in
the back—it's just kinda weird," Chen says.
Kevin Haynes '05, a transfer student from
Suffolk University, has been seated on a couch alone for the last 60
minutes, engrossed in a packet of photocopied papers. Asked to comment,
he says Hillside "is really like a Starbucks."
Across the room, assistant manager Chris Bove
pours 2-percent milk into a plastic cup of chai and ice. Call Hillside
a restaurant, he says—don't use the word cafeteria. "Dining
is all about perception."
Camille Dodero
Camille Dodero '98 is a writer based in the Boston area.
Photo: Midday at the Hillside Café.
By Lee Pellegrini
Top of Page
|
