Blue Wall — Restaurant in Amherst

My wife and I were here with our daughter who was presenting her research at a conference on campus. As a presenter, she received a voucher for a free meal here, so we all checked it out. There are several different food vendors under one roof - think food court at your local mall, only better. The half-dozen or so food choices ranged from Thai to Italian, salads to baked goods, and healthy and even healthier, with gelato thrown in for extra measure. We were there at lunch hour, so it was packed with students, professors, conference attendees, and the campus hotel guests. Tables are long and you eat communally. I had a Caesar salad, which I topped with chicken, avocado, and bacon at an extra cost, and a large iced tea, all totaling about $13.00. The server - I presumed to be a UMass student - was friendly and quick. The salad tasted great and fresh, the iced tea not so great or fresh. My wife, daughter, and my daughter's friends all opted for the Thai foods, mostly some kind of soup or noodle bowl. Their individual choices were around $10 in cost each, and each were satisfied with their selection. Later in the day, we got some of the gelato to celebrate a successful research presentation and to keep us happy for the hour or so ride back home. The portions were generous for the cost,and the taste was good, but only good. If I were in the area again, I would search this site...

The food is great, and students can use YCMP and Dining Dollars here to pay for their meals. They have a great variety of foods, including vegetarian options at every single station (except Chef's Table some days). My one complaint is with the burger place, every type of patty comes out in only a few minutes except vegetarian burgers. I've had to wait over 20 minutes some days to get my black bean burgers. Depending on how attentive the chef is, it can be as fast as 10 minutes, I imagine this is just because it takes longer to cook. They also are pretty bad about giving you single-use containers at the burger place.

They also used to have better cookies at the dessert place. I think they switched from being made in house to store bought. Definitely a bummer. Used to be 75 cents for a massive cookie, now it's a dollar and the cookies are way smaller and honestly not as good.

Every other restaurant in blue wall is always incredibly fast and tasty. I would recommend this if you're on a meal plan, otherwise expect to pay about 10 dollars for a meal. Still...

I got the 4b burger at The Grill, as soon as I got it, it was sloppy and unmanageable to the point where I couldn’t pick it up. The bun was too small for the burger and it was soggy, the sauce was everywhere. I quite literally couldn’t grab it and take a bite nor could I remake the burger myself to fix it. I decided to try to take a bite and it tasted fishy on top of that. Not worth trying to make it work and eat it, $10 down the drain. And there was no line so they weren’t pressed for time, it was so sloppy and it...