“Knollcrest Dining hall is bad” is a claim that I’ve heard throughout all of my four years at Calvin. This reputation is undeserved. Knollcrest Dining hall is just as good as Commons, if not better.
The difference between the two is public perception, especially coming from a series of incidents and problems that occurred after COVID-19. While it is certainly true that Knollcrest has had a fair share of problems with food being improperly cooked in the past, this is not uncommon in the food industry.
Mistakes are made because chefs are human and fallible. In fact, these same issues have cropped up at Commons on occasion as well, and have always been dealt with professionally and quickly.
While public perception seems to believe that Knollcrest has had this happen almost regularly, this is simply not true. Having worked at the dining halls for four years now, I have seen many, many meals served, and rarely do we have a problem at either dining hall with food being improperly cooked.
Additionally, comparisons between the staff of the two dining halls are even more misguided. People seem to blame the cooks at Knollcrest for being somehow worse or inferior to the ones at Commons. This is not true. Oftentimes, they’re staffed by the same people. Chefs go between both buildings and work at all stations. The other problem came from COVID-19.
When COVID-19 hit, supply chains, as we all know, collapsed. This was no different for the food industry where produce selection, ingredient quality, and availability all drastically went downhill.
It’s only recently, within the past year or so, that those supply chains and that quality has actually returned to pre-COVID levels.The quality of ingredients and the food we are able to get is actually much better than it was when I first started here in 2021.
Does this mean that the food is as good as it could be? No, of course not.
The food could always be better. The main problem is limited resources and cost. Calvin students want their meal plans to be cheap. Expensive meal plans aren’t fun to pay, but with higher cost comes higher quality. If meal plans were increased in pricing, the quality of food would increase as well.
The reason that Commons gets a reputation for being the “better” of the two dining halls is because of its menu consistency. Commons has fewer stations and a much more limited production cycle than Knollcrest does. Whereas Commons has approximately eight stations ready at any given time, Knollcrest has at least 13.
Knollcrest also has a much wider menu selection. While during dinner Taqueria and Pizza are certainly always available during the weekdays, Comfort Corner, Zone, and Globe have new options every day. With stations like Get Real added, it has sky-rocketed the options and delicious options available. Additionally, special events happen at Knollcrest far more often than they do at Commons, and those events are usually quite good. Most recently was Homecoming which, in most people’s eyes, was a great success with amazing quality and tasty food.
While these options improve Knollcrest’s options overall, it makes it more difficult to master all the cooking areas. The main difference is that Commons’ menu is so consistent and so regular that the cooks there have a much easier time preparing and cooking it to this exact same consistency every single day of every single week. Knollcrest does not have that luxury available to it, and so the food quality can vary more.
Another problem that Knollcrest suffers is a paradox of having a wide variety whilst seemingly having no variety as well. This, I think, comes from people’s unwillingness to try new things and their desire to eat the same things over and over again. If students had their way with the menus here at Calvin, at least 95% of the food would be deep-fried in some capacity, probably consisting mostly of chicken nuggets, fries, and hazelnut poppers (which are no longer available because they literally stopped existing, so stop asking for them).
However, the variability in quality at Knollcrest isn’t actually a bad thing. I think that this variety and change allows for better food to be served at Knollcrest than at Commons.
While Commons will certainly always be mediocre, Knollcrest has the ability to be truly great. I’ll be honest — sometimes, yes, Knollcrest has disappointed me, particularly on weekends.There’s a whole set of issues associated with that, which I won’t get into in this piece. But I still think that overall, Knollcrest is a superior place to eat. It also is a non-mind breaking use of floor space, and has a chiller atmosphere to it.
The main problem comes with Calvin not investing enough in its facilities to actually have them be as welcoming and fantastic as they could be, although that new coat of paint that they put in over the summer certainly helps a lot. But that’s an essay for next week.