SJSU Dining Commons — Restaurant in San Jose

Update March 26th 2019: I'm actually going to recommend this place as not only a quick-bite but a decent value for students. My change in tone comes down to one drastic change in policy from previous ownership: to-go boxes.

You can purchase to-go boxes which are reusable and washable. They're a great add on to the value of a meal plan which it seems like they're also changing for the coming fall semester.

Also as I figured the food and ridiculous wait times have since the grand opening settled down, and the food quality has made a leap in quality since the past few years. I'm not sure whether this has to do with new management or a shift from completely relying on student labor to hiring more full-time staff, but they've definitely changed things for the better.

TL;DR It's college food, you can live with it. They serve you the food portioned, but you can good back as many times as you want. Disappointing remodel.

I've been eating here for 3 years now. In that time, I have worked there for 1, and more recently seen a complete restructure of the service in the most recent academic year (2018-2019).

Let me get this bit out of the way first: it's WAS an on campus cafeteria with primarily students working the kitchen. So yes the food isn't the greatest, but it's edible and can say (believe it or not) a good chunk of the main entrees are prepared fresh. The taste is definitely a hit or miss, but despite a monthly food rotation cycle it gets old fast.

Now I all caps'd "was" because the year I worked there was my first year, and as I mentioned they are no longer run by Spartan Shops. As a result one of the main reasons to actually eat here being the Jamba Juice is gone. In fact a lot of things have been reorganized.

The gluten free kitchen was removed for whatever reason 2 years ago (I know a couple of friends who actually well... CAN'T EAT GLUTEN and were pretty upset when it was removed). Yes they offer gluten free options but for those of us who remembers it's not nearly as satisfying.

The recent remodel currently doesn't have the ice cream machines anymore, there's no more dedicated stand to order coffees, and the cold bar is lacking the variety it had in previous years.

But to their credit, what's left of the relocated desserts bar looks better, there's a wider variety of spices available, and they've added a coffee machine in lieu of the separate stand for ordering it.

Okay I'm stretching quite a bit, and hopefully over time they improve since it seems like they're still in the process of hiring and getting all. the stations setup but until then, it seems this new "Spartan Dining Experience" has turned into more of the same generic food you can find at every other CSU.

I would bring Santa Barbara, Berkeley students, even SJSU alumni and they would be impressed by the DC, because in the past years we really did have it better off than other campuses. Now? I'm not so sure.

Have a meal plan and are dissatisfied with what they have? Assuming the policy hasn't changed with the new company, in the first few weeks you can always downgrade your plan. I'm considering it, and am hoping it's still an option.

Not that many people would care but I will update this review as and...

It is a pretty nice dining commons, except for the food part. I am always very polite to the employees of the different restaurants since it is not their fault. Maybe, the management is bad. Maybe this place underfunded. But, all of the restaurants besides the Mexican place (which gets redundant very quickly) and Delicious Without (varies a lot) are pretty bad.

The burger place does not even put salt and pepper on their burgers. It's literally just a patty... with some lettuce and pickles you could put on it that has been out for hours.

The other place which serves primarily asian food always oversalts their rice. Their race is also mushy, and kind of taste like salt water was poured on it. If they just took the salt from that rice, and put it on the other dish, it'd be so much better.

So many of their different dishes just lack seasoning. Often, delicious without will serve near seasonless chicken. Or, they will serve their barbecue chicken, but when that's the only good restaurant, and they serve it 2-3x per week (either for lunch or dinners), that gets pretty boring too. It's not hard for a chef to make a unique sauce that tastes good, or to simply just put some seasonings on it.

It feels like management or the employees / chefs, or whoever controls how the food taste, never even tries the food themselves. It's sometimes remarkable how much flavor this food lacks.

SJSU is a great campus with really great opportunities. I hate to bash on it too much, but I just thought others should know about how lousy this Dining Commons is. I wouldn't recommend getting a meal plan after Freshmen year.

Even if they had to raise prices to make the food taste better and be higher quality / healthier, I think almost everyone would be happy and...

Upon entering this establishment for the first time, I fell under the false assumption of this cafeteria being satisfactory, if not rather extraordinary. However, this facade soon ended, after about a week of decent satisfaction, nothing would've prepared me for what was to come next.

The food available decided to spontaneously contract bipolarism, on some days the food is adequate at best. But, its the other days that I've been warned of. Too many times.

I came in, it was a Tuesday morning, looking for a decent breakfast. I go to get some some eggs, scrambled, as they usually are. Upon first inspection, they seemed fine, but as soon as the yellow fluffy bird-fetus made contact with my taste buds, my eyes squinted, my nose flared, and everything seemed to contract inward. For what I tasted was not egg. No... what I tasted was false hopes and dreams, false promises and legends of true happiness, only to be hit by the bitter truth, like a flame-fisted semi truck hitting my face at high speeds.

So, no. The dining commons is not a good establishment. The opposite actually.

I will leave you with one last story.

Once I wanted to relieve myself, as most would. I entered the mens bathroom, and went to the urinal. But before I could relieve myself, I looked down at the urinal, or atleast what I thought was the urinal. But instead, all I saw was the large disembodied head of Ewan Mcgregor, mouth open awaiting my urine. I proceeded...