All the Free Food You Could Want!
In case you haven’t noticed, there is some sort of free food thing going on out on South Lawn. That line that snakes all the way around the lawn and past the J-School? Yeah, it might take a while, but once you’ve given them your ID you are free to gorge yourself on delectables from a half dozen different food carts serving up grilled meat and other unhealthy things.
If you miss out on the Big Apple BBQ or don’t want to wait on the line, there is another unfortunately scheduled event going on in Lerner from 6-8 that will have a ton of free pizza. Vegetarians and lazy people might want to hit up Lerner East Ramp Lounge to be fed and see a short documentary presented by an urban studies seminar. The documentary, directed by best selling author and rock star professor Sudhir Venkatesh, is about the destruction of public housing in the South Side of Chicago. Academics watching a video about the urban poor and eating pizza, what fun!
Tags: free food
29 April 2009 @ 2:48 PM · 28 comments
…accompanying picture!
Waited almost an hour…
you wait in line for half an hour to get in. Then you wait for half an hour to get 1 type of crappy food. Whoever decided to change it up this year is retarded.
Terrible food. Yuck.
this was so poorly coordinated. boo
afraid that the food would not be properly sanitized and I might catch swine flu. My love of street food is being squashed by my germaphobia.
Who the fuck set up the layout of the food carts? Are they comatose?
I have never seen such incompetent organization, or lack thereof.
like everyone else said terrible set-up… also love how CC go screwed while everyone else had ridiculously short lines.
better luck next time?
who the hell put up three carts in a square and then two carts facing each other. person who planned the layout needs to be fired. enjoyed the food though…
PLANNED THE LAYOUT?! I DIDN’T GET ANY FOOOOOOD
I hope whoever made this event gets swine flu!
that’s so weird actually, i got four dishes within 30 min and I wasn’t at the front of the line…I was impressed (for the first time) with ccsc.
at least you all didnt have to WORK it, what a disaster. got no food either, for being a human hacky sack.
was terrible. people were getting violent at the lines and sda/esc/ccsc/sga leaders were barking at students to back up, though that was impossible because mobs of students were getting pushed up at the front. very poorly organized and ineffectively regulated
was this really free or just part of our “student life fee”
i refused to wait in lines and just cut like hell. even so it took forever to get anything.
except the beer which took no time at all to get my two beers.
Of course it was not really free — maybe you did not have to pay for it today, but you certainly did pay for it with your (wasted) student life fee.
This event SUCKED big time. Crappy food. Hostile organizers. CHAOS… and what’s up with segregating entrance by schools? I thought the Councils were working for integration or something.
I say abolish the Councils and let’s use our fees for something that really works for us — not just for their own petty self-interests.
Jerks.
FAIL
way to waste time, space, and money
big disappointment
I went by at 5:40 when the line went past the J building entrance. Great, free food if you have enough time to wait for 60min to get something… They should have just put a swiping machine at the entrance and if the light turns green, its an undergraduate, done! And WTF with segregated line for different schools. 10 people waiting in the Barnard line and 400 in in the CC/SEAS one.
Maybe a good idea but for 6000 students there needs to be better organization of things….
Bloody shoddy work with CCSC as usual, incompetent organization both by the administration and the students. Food was horrible, quality compromised by so many hostile undergrads waiting for food in tiny portions… CCSC, EPIC FAIL. But then again, how else do you guys do things other than fail at them? Clear Party… you’ve got a year long of failures ahead of you!!! Cheers!
fail on every organizer’s part. even the free pizza in lerner was not there, as promised.
Worst event in Columbia history. Then again, this soul-crushing, miserable experience turned out to be a pretty poetic summary of the experience of being at Columbia for 4 years.
whose ridiculous idea was it to allow everyone to take FOUR food items. Why isn’t one enough? Way to multiply the line lengths by four. Did no one foresee that lines and organization would be a problem? Also, whose idea was it to have a mosh pit as a waiting area by having three trucks within 10 feet of each other on the sundial?
I helped organized this and I’m just commenting not to defend us but simply to answer these questions.
Q: Why did we do the food carts this year?
A: Our budget was significantly less than last year and CU Catering increased their prices by 150%. This year, CU Catering charged almost $20 per person for a crappy burger, potato & macaroni salad, and a piece of watermelon. With the food carts, we were able to give you a combination of 4 food items such as a platter of Chicken & Rice, a burrito, 2 slices of pizza and a waffle for about $2 total a person, which is amazing. I disagree that the food was poor quality and we were allowed to have a variety of options for meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans.
Q: Why were there 3 trucks on the pavement in such poor arrangement?
A: We had arranged for the 3 trucks to be lined up on the red brick. However, when they were arriving, security told us that they could not be on the brick but only on the gray stone. We cannot close off College Walk, though. So, that was the ONLY formation that we could do. Plus, one of the trucks needed electricity (and only told us this 2 hours before the event) so we needed an area close to the electrical source.
Q: Why did we split the lines from school?
When we were deciding how to do the lines, we debated over alphabetical or school. We chose school because it is more likely that friend groups would be coming together from the same school than having names in the same alphabet groups. It would be more likely that friend groups would be divided if we split the lines by last name. We didn’t want to break up friend groups because we thought it would cause more hostility.
All that said, we were really excited about the variety of food we were providing and really did not foresee how bad the lines would actually be. We really put a lot of effort into it since contacting vendors took much more time than going through CU Catering. I think we’ve learned out lesson. Although I do still think the food we got was way better than those burgers, we didn’t realize students would be standing in a line for the whole time of the event. We did ask the vendors to make food ahead of time and have trays ready, but that didn’t really happen. This event is supposed to relaxing and a time for students to picnic on the lawns, but we did not provide that. I am very sorry for that.
ok, thanks for the explanation.
so can we get our money back?
unfortunately no, we paid the vendors and they made the food. plus, student life fees never get refunded anyway. even if there’s leftover money at the end of the year, it just rolls over to next year
To echo the sentiment expressed by others earlier, that SUCKED. It was the single worst event I have ever witnessed in four years at this school. An utter abomination. For $500, one could easily buy more than a few dumplings in Chinatown without having to wait in line for an hour to have your card swiped by security guards guarding the entrance like the bouncers at some “chic” disco club. Idiotic with a capital I. It solidified my intention not to give a single additional cent to this money-hungry, price-grubbing, sorry excuse for a college.