At Mississippi State University, the student body is blessed to have access to countless resources and benefits that help students grow as scholars and as people. In the relentless pursuit to better ourselves as individuals, the Bulldog Family can work up quite the appetite. Fortunately, the university has students covered with a wide variety of on-campus dining options. Students have universal access to at least one dining facility for all three meals of the day, at any time that is convenient for each student’s busy class or extracurricular schedule. However, one dining hall reigns supreme above the others.
The Fresh Food Company is MSU’s newest and most superior dining hall to date. Whether you want to eat with friends for lunch, grab a piece of fresh fruit on your way to class or drink a cup of coffee and study in a social setting, The Fresh has you covered for all occasions. Offering hours that adjust to your schedule, a variety of delicious, plentiful and fresh food and a location built with student residents in mind, The Fresh is the ultimate bang for your block meal on campus.
In examining the design of the The Fresh, it is easy to tell that the mission in its establishment is to serve residents, especially south-side residents, on MSU’s campus. Opening at 10:30 a.m., The Fresh can give students a place to go during the break between morning and afternoon classes. Going to The Fresh, as opposed to going back to dorm rooms, gives residents the opportunity to meet others. Meeting new friends as an incoming student is an incredibly stressful process, and the stress is mitigated by having a social space such as The Fresh to interact with people who are doing the exact same thing. This is a vital necessity for students’ emotional health because we are living in a time of increasing stress on college students.
According to Allie Bidwell of U.S News,”students’ emotional health has dropped to an all-time low.”
The student body needs this opportunity to recharge and decompress from the hectic schedule of college life, The Fresh serves as an on-campus location to do exactly that. Opening hours, however, are not all The Fresh has to offer, for the closing time is the real draw of the dining facility. Unlike The Perry, The Fresh is open until 10:00 p.m. for students to come and eat whenever they are free. As it is open for nearly 12 hours, The Fresh can serve students all three meals of the day in addition to catering to everyone’s schedule. The Fresh is perfect for students who enjoy eating dinner early and ideal for hungry students leaving from their 6-9 p.m. classes. In addition to the location of the dining facility and the hours of operation, the overall quality of the food is a massive draw to the dining hall.
The Fresh offers a massive amount of options, all of which are excellent choices for students to eat on campus.
According to MSU’s Dining Services, “The Fresh provides a wide range of variety by featuring 11 different stations of display-style cooking and made-to-order entrees prepared entirely in front of you.”
The visibility of how the food is being prepared is a testament to the name of the establishment. Assuring everything is fresh and made to order gives students confidence in the overall quality. The fact that The Fresh can keep up the standard across the wide variety of food options is the reason why students are so fond of the dining facility. The facility is student-centric, meeting the needs of each individual regardless of who they are or what they like to eat. On any given day, the carnivore who walks into The Fresh can easily find the beef, pork or chicken options.
However, according to Niall McCarthy of Forbes, 5% of Americans adhere to vegetarian diets, which is reflected in the student body on a college campus. The Fresh offers plant-based food options to satisfy the needs of these students as well, proving that The Fresh can meet any dietary need on campus. Additionally, the all-you-can-eat model, present at all of MSU’s cafeterias is present at The Fresh, as well. One of the unspoken benefits of the massive variety of options The Fresh has is the decrease in line length at every station. As more and more choices are given to students, people will utilize these choices decreasing line length for all stations. At The Fresh, the 30 minute queues on Catfish Friday or Fried Chicken Wednesday seen at The Perry are non-existent. For the price of a single block meal any student, regardless of how hungry they are or whatever they are hungry for, can find satisfaction at The Fresh.
At MSU, the best dining center is The Fresh because of the variety of food the cafeteria provides, the social environment surrounding the dining experience and the hours that are flexible within the schedule of each MSU student. In a university as diverse as MSU, the student experience is at the center our learning environment here on campus, so any aspect of university life that caters to the individual should be celebrated. The Fresh is the epitome of a facility perfectly conforming to the individual experience here at the university, and as a result, it is ultimate campus dining experience MSU has to offer.