Local Point — Restaurant in Seattle

Local Point is a cafeteria styled diner with six food booths- The Big, Custom, and Global Kitchens, Deli (make your own sandwich), Grill (burgers), and Pagliaccis (Pizza place). If you're living on West campus, you will primarily eat here.

On pricing, pizzas cost 2.75 to 4.00, the burger ~5.25, the Sandwich 6.20, and dishes from the remaining kitchens cost 5.50-8.50. If eating lunch and dinner at LP, a Level 3 or 4 plan should get you comfortably through the quarter. It should be noted that LP is cheaper than competing solutions on the Ave which cost from 5.50 and 10.50 per dish.

Local Point rotates dishes on a weekly basis. While its great for predictability, it has problems. Pagliacci (four pizzas varieties- cheese, pepperoncini, a vegetable/ meat, and a primo), the Deli (its a subway, there are only so many varieties you can try), and the Grill (has only one vegetarian option) don't change their dishes. The custom kitchen makes pasta every afternoon, leaving two counters with varying dishes. If its Black History Month, the Global Kitchen won't make vegetarian food, so you're left with only one counter and if this one counter makes a dish you don't like (for instance, I dislike the vegetable rice dish), you're stuck for not eating/ eating food you really dislike during lunch for a week, while having only two counters to really chose from for dinner. Its ironic, the reason I increased my dining account level after my first quarter was because I had a sense of excitement as I entered Local Point to find out what new dish was prepared when a new dish was being introduced each day; this, has now sadly been replaced with fear or dread of a dish I don't like greeting me on Mondays that I may be stuck with for seven days.

Local Point is primarily run by students with the exception of the preparation of dishes which is handled by culinary professionals. This supports the student community who get part time jobs, but it also brings me to one of the biggest gripes about Local Point, more specifically, the Deli- inconsistency. Students preparing the sandwiches do so very differently- with sometimes applying too little and sometimes way too much of a spreading. On the nine-grain, the excessive spread passes through the actual bread and disintegrates when raised to eat, making a mess, while other times, when prepared in haste, there may be an excess of onions which overpowers every other spread/ topping in the sandwich, making a rather unpleasant eating experience.

On another note- service hours. While breakfast and lunch aren't a problem, dinner most definitely is if studying late. Dinner starts being served at 5:00PM and is gradually phased out between 8:00PM and 8:30PM. If studying for an exam you will be eating pizza for dinner (open till 11PM). On this note- if you're an international student and are staying on campus for the holidays, LP shuts down completely- you cannot even enter it during the breaks. Aside from being unable to get prepared food which you have come to expect from your Dining Account plan, you have only two options- go to the District Market where you can use you dining account plan to purchase ingredients to cook for yourself, or go to the Ave which doesn't work on the Dining account plan and requires money.

Albeit I'm harsh on LP in this review, I believe most of this anger comes from the high expectations that were set on them in my first quarter here at the University- the food here is good and still is amazing, and I would argue is a really good value over food from the Ave if not tastier and seemingly healthier; however, with the phasing out of new dishes after my first quarter, I began to dread going to LP from looking forward to it. They have great cooks, and really support the students on campus by having almost all their posts run by students, while making amazing food, and I really hope to see my first quarters honeymoon period...

Food taste average. Feels like food they are budgeted in a way that chefs had to share food material among different kitchen. You get the same side dish for average quality food. It is hard to feel replenished by the food here. One could only recommend local point for its Tuesday Latin bowl and Terro bowl .Else, I don't find anything else nutritious to eat at local point; you get carbohydrate, protein bomb from breakfast option at global kitchen, DUB street burger, or the Pagliacci Pizzaria. Salad bar and sandwich could be expensive for its portion and okay taste. It is only no wonder why restaurants on the Ave thrive. The general vibe is not suitable for students to want to spend time here, for the music played are often just teenager indie rock. It does not feel relaxing at all to stay at a place when your background noise are filled with the songs. Songs could be too active for a place to relax and enjoy conversations or working homework. The serving staffs at local point are generally consist of mixture of students and chef staff, so it is often that the students are not in the awareness of what their kitchen serves, making the interaction sometime awkward. The displaying menu monitors at local point restaurants are often inaccurate (or broken), making it really confusing for ordering. The decision of upcharge for people using credit card/debit card feels absurd to me, even under the excuse of husky card using student subsidization; the experience feel very forced as a student just wanting to eat normally at their own school using their money from their own card.

Probably one thing that UW local point need is just more love. These kind of inattentiveness in the student service are not just reflected in the restaurants, but also among the school administration system. Something as basic as dining experience should not be this awkwardly presented. I hope these issues could be addressed someday, and with more care, because we...

The deli is the worst imitation subway ever- 1 ask for gluten free - get asked if actually alergic - proceeds to not change gloves and handle bread - contaminates loaf of bread (just because I'm not gluten free doesn't mean others aren't) 2 ask for avocado spread - proceed to apply too much spread - buy sandwich - sandwich melts in hand when raised 3 ask for lettuce - get four layers of lettuce with two sticking over two inches from the border of the bread 4 buys sandwich - doesn't put toothpick on - top half of sandwich falls off when leaving 5 cannot eat cheese - 2.10$ for 4 small pieces of tofu or two paper thin pieces of vegan meat - ask if can substitute cheese with more protein - told no (2.10$ (w/ tax) seems a bit expensive for 4 pieces of tofu, doesn't it?) 6 like siriachi and sweet chili as dips - no sweet chili on weekends (only two bottles circulating whole diner...