I remember looking at colleges and constantly asking what the food was like on each campus. I imagine that many prospective students share that curiosity. Holy Cross has many on-campus dining options for students to enjoy while they hang out with friends, study, or meet with professors. There’s coffee, burgers, home-style cooking and more. The meal plan per semester for most students is as follows: students receive an unlimited amount of meal swipes per semester to the Kimball Main Dining Room, eight meal swipes per week in Lower Kimball , and $425 dining dollars that can be used at Cool Beans, Cafe Babel, D’Agostino Cafe, Crossroads, The Pub, and the Lobby Shop.
The main dining room is located at the bottom of campus in Kimball Hall. The Kimball main dining room has a plethora of options. At breakfast, there is an omelette station where students can create their own omelette, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, or egg sandwiches, with various breakfast sides. At lunch the omelette bar turns over to a stir fry station where students can create a stir fry bowl, the sandwich bar opens up (that’s my favorite, try a spinach wrap with chicken salad, lettuce, tomato, and chipotle mayo), the burger bar is stocked with plenty of toppings, and the classics station offers a hot meal prepared by the dining staff. Lunch and dinner stations are basically the same, however, the classics station changes.
A hot meal at the classics station in Kimball could be anything like roasted chicken, short ribs, or Mexican pulled pork for tacos. Students would all agree that the best meal in Kimball is chicken parmesan. Chicken parm night happens roughly once a month and almost the entire student body waits in line for this highly anticipated meal. Other events that students attend consistently are holiday themed meals. Most recently, we celebrated Thanksgiving in the main dining room with a full turkey dinner- stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pie. Kimball is an all-you-can- eat dining experience that only cost students one meal swipe. Another favored option in Kimball is the mac and cheese. It is out of this world and everyone finds time to get there when they see it on the menu. You can check the dining menus for every location online to decide where you want to go for each meal.
Another dining option on campus is the Lower Kimball Food Court which is considered more of a lunch spot. Students can choose from Habaneros- a Mexican food place (the Chalupa bowls are amazing), Villa Prima- the pizza place, The Grill for hamburgers and hot dogs, or the Deli for delicious sandwiches. Check lower Kimball out on Wednesdays because they have grilled cheese sandwiches made with garlic bread and creamy tomato soup. I go to Lower Kimball for grilled cheese every week because it’s my absolute favorite lunch of all time.
We also have places like Crossroads and the Pub which are both located in the Hogan Campus Center on the bottom floor. The Pub makes delightful salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Additionally, Holy Cross is not a dry campus so the pub turns into a bar on Tuesday nights for those students who are 21 and older. I recommend the chicken caesar salad from the Pub, but you can also build your own salad as well with anything you want in it. Crossroads feeds everybody’s late night cravings. They have chicken fingers, fries, mozzarella sticks, and mac and cheese bites. The mac and cheese bites are so good, especially after a long night of studying.
Campus also has two coffee shops: Cool Beans on the first floor of Hogan and Cafe Babel located in the Stein academic building. I order a coffee from Cool Beans every morning, but I also love to get their breakfast sandwiches. You can order any breakfast sandwich on any type of bagel. In addition to coffee and breakfast sandwiches, you can get smoothies at both locations. During the holiday seasons they have specialty drinks including pumpkin spiced lattes in the fall and peppermint hot chocolate before Christmas. At night, Cool Beans also becomes an ice cream bar where you can order milkshakes.
The last place for dining is the newest: the D’Agostino Cafe located in our Integrated Science Complex. This is a student favorite for lunch. They have soups, sandwiches, and salads all of which have received positive reviews from students. It’s expensive so save your dining dollars. Try to go even if you don’t have any classes in the science building, it’s totally worth it. I’m a theatre major who will probably never have a class in the Science Complex and I try to go there as often as possible because it’s that good. No matter where you eat on campus the food is delightful.
-Olivia Hastie ’22
