My Visit to the Commons at the Cannon Center (the name of the place is cheesy)

The Commons at the Cannon Center

So some of you may remember me mentioning that I wanted to go to the new Cannon Center sometime, well last night I got my chance. I thought I would let you know how it was, some of you might have a different opinion of the experience (Jared) so please let me know if I got anything wrong.

The Atmosphere: I have to say that this new Cannon Center does not look like a college cafeteria (or at least not like a BYU cafeteria) at all. It is colorful, well lit and spacious. There are no vestiges of the 1960’s, the chairs, tables and booths are modern. I love that the food stations are spread out throughout the room. When I was a freshman it was a hassle to wait through the whole line for the one thing that I wanted, now if you want pasta you go to the pasta station, if you want a burger you go to that station. I also love that you serve yourself, well I guess you don’t really but you pick the plate that you want, I think this is a much better idea than having a scooper, it seems like there is the possibility this might go a little faster plus you get the part you want (for example I hate the edges of casseroles and I just want middle pieces, with this new set up I can avoid edges)

The Drinks: This is an important section, when I was a freshman the best thing about the Cannon Center was the plethora of drink options. I didn’t see my favorite (Raspberry Lemonade) but there were enough other choices that I didn’t care that much and hey they might get it soon or I could have missed it. They have slushies, the night we were there they had 4 flavors, it was pretty exciting. The drink stations are located throughout the room, this is much better than the old Cannon Center where the drinks were at the end of the food line (people would get mad when you cut for a glass of water, losers)


The Salad Bar: I thought the salad bar was the best part, I know you think I am lame and that’s okay. The greens were fresh and well stocked, I am sure the fruit was good too (it was at the old one) but I didn’t try it. They also had a variety of prepared salads (macaroni, potato, you get the idea), I didn’t try those either since they probably had mayonnaise in them and I HATE mayonnaise (it makes a gross noise when you spread it and hello it is just fat in a jar, you might as well eat lard, well that might be extreme but I really hate mayo). They did have tons of lemons and limes, olive oil, and vinegar, which I thought was a great alternative to salad dressing (they had 5 or 6 salad dressing no worries), I was pretty proud of them.

The Food: The food was good, I need to clarify that this is a college cafeteria, they feed thousands of hungry students every day, if you are expecting gourmet cooking you are going to be disappointed, but overall I thought it was pretty good. I really liked the tomato soup (and I don’t like tomato soup generally) and this pizza/cracker thing. The menu changes every day so I am sure some days are better than others.

The Dessert: In general I thought that there were a lot of great dessert options, I don’t really like dessert so I am going on appearance mostly. There were tons of jello choices (yeah ebug and muggle) so you can eat your heart out. They had a few cakes, doughnuts, apple crisp, cherry pie, ice cream, rice krispie treats, cookies, and BYU brownies. My only complaint is that they didn’t have any sprinkles for the ice cream (I love sprinkles and soft serve, mostly I like the sprinkles, I just add the soft serve so people don’t look at me as oddly).

The Outfits: the outfits the employees have to wear are ridiculous, you just have to see them to understand, they could be worse (imagine Hot Dog on a Stick) but I think they were just trying to look too sophisticated and they failed to realize that half of their clientele thinks eating at McDonalds is living it up.

So now you guys will all have to go to the new Cannon Center and make up your own minds, seriously if you ever ate at the old one be prepared to be amazed, and yes Dad it is all you can eat now, not like in the old days when they wanted you to go hungry.