Penland Crossroads is wonderful. It feels too big though. What’s the other side of the room, opposite to the dessert station even being used for? Some people tell me the bathrooms are over there, but I don’t really know because I’ve never had time to check. Why would I go to where the dessert station is not?
Every day I can walk into Penland Crossroads and, right as I pass the counter where they swipe you in, I turn the corner and there they are — stacks upon stacks of pastries and desserts of all sorts. They’ve got brownies, cake, cookies, ice cream … it’s amazing. The dessert station is great, but I feel bad for those people that aren’t interested in eating dessert for breakfast lunch and dinner every day.
Goodness gracious. It would be a crying shame for people to be wasting their swipes if they wanted actual meals at Penland Crossroads. I honestly have no idea why anyone would complain about a food court only offering desserts. Which is why the word “Crossroads” is a little confusing to me. What else is being crossed other than desserts? That’s all they’ve got in there, other than drinks of course.
The confusion regarding the bathroom’s location and overall existence is a little more serious than you may think. My friends keep telling me they wish there was a bathroom at Penland Crossroads, but I’m almost positive the rumors about a bathroom being in there are true.
I think if the Penland staff stacked the brownies to a measly height of 3 feet, rather than the 7-foot peak they usually reach, students may start noticing the pathway to the alleged bathroom. I simply can’t see it from the dessert station, though, and once I’ve got my Blue Bell and cookies, my focus is nowhere else. Unfortunately, there are some people who don’t have as much focus as I do on the baked goodness at Crossroads.
Penland just needs to settle the issue once and for all. Answer the question of whether or not there’s a bathroom in there and we can finally just be happy and eat dessert with the apparently much-needed assurance of a bathroom being in the vicinity. The bathroom dispute and the name of Penland Crossroads are really my only problems with the dining hall.
I’m glad Penland doesn’t have any other sections. The other dining halls should do the same. Sure, we’ll be be less healthy, I guess, but you can just not get a meal plan and not have to worry about it. Subway is just a couple yards away from Penland anyway.
Memorial’s food court has way too much other food. In fact, there just shouldn’t be any other food. Why are they still serving flying saucers? They closed Collins for a reason. It’s way too much to ask the food court to be making “real food” when they’re already busy making the desserts around the clock. What else do you need? I’ll answer that for you. Nothing.
Crossroads is so good that it should be the example the other on-campus food courts follow.
Hopefully we can get to that point one day.
Jeffrey Swindoll is a junior journalism and film and digital media double major from Miami. He is a sports writer and regular columnist for the Lariat.
