Four years ago, I walked into the Caf for the first time with my first-year seminar. Overwhelmed by the breakfast options at the time, I went for cereal, a safe option. For the entirety of my freshman year I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the Caf. It became a place to meet up with new friends that I gradually made throughout the school year. It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I started to really play with what the Caf served. My creativity all started when I made a wrap with quinoa, cheese, a variety of vegetables and of course, Sriracha. My friends were impressed as I enjoyed my self-constructed wrap. Once junior year came around, I began to really stick with whatever the Kove served. I found their options to be more satisfying and healthier than what the grill offered. The Kove served the all-time favorites like their Chicken Shawarma and Chicken Pot Pie.

Overall the Caf is always easily accessible and serves ready to go. There’s just something so easy about the Caf. Although the majority of us have a love/hate relationship with it, it’s a time saver and overall effortless. You don’t have to meal prep for lunch or dinner. This is when in the real world, post college you start to somewhat miss the Caf. Maybe it’s less about the food and more about the social aspect of it. You always know that you can find friends to head to the Caf with and then sit for an hour…or two, if it’s Sunday brunch. At times we know that the Caf scene can be overwhelming though. You may run into someone you didn’t want to see from over the weekend or you run into some of your best friends that you’ve made at Dickinson –because what’s really better than getting that text to meet your friends at the cushies for your early bird Caf dinner at 5:30.

For me, my typical Monday dinner usually starts at 5:30. It’s a comfortable routine with me and my friends. For dinner, as usual I headed to the Kove. They were serving something that I hadn’t tried before, which was a vegan esc. quesadilla without the cheese. As a cheese substitute, there was mashed up spinach and black beans inside the quesadilla. The outer shell was a bit soft, and not too crunchy where the quesadilla would become flakey and messy. The inside filling of spinach and black beans was mild in flavoring. There could’ve been more spice to the spinach bean mash, but that’s where the salsa came in. The Kove offered a side of salsa and sour cream. As I’m not a fan of sour cream I just went for the salsa, which made the quesadilla more tasteful when dipped in the salsa. Overall, the vegan quesadilla was subpar, but the company I had in the Caf for dinner was as always, above average.