The Commons — Restaurant in Ypsilanti

A few years ago when The Commons was run by the University before they privatized it, the food and service were both really remarkably good for a campus dining hall. Since that time, both seem to have declined consistently. I don't know, maybe they're temporarily off their game because of COVID, but lunch today was pretty underwhelming. Pretty much everything was cold, except the ice cream, which was out of order. One notable exception was the soup, which was the correct temperature, and really very good. Recommend the soup.

More infuriating than the lackluster food service, though, was their COVID protocol. This is an indoor dining hall, serving a ton of people in one enclosed space who definitionally are not wearing masks (because they're eating). The way they have chosen to address the potential risk associated with that situation is by replacing all of the cups, plates, and utensils with disposable trash. There is very little evidence of surface transmission of COVID to begin with, and I'm 100% positive that it's nothing an industrial dishwasher couldn't handle, so really this is just a colossal waste of paper and plastic. It's really offensive, especially given hundreds of unmasked people breathing the same air is dramatically more risky than washed plates. To cap off that irony, though, all of the food is self-service, so everyone ends up touching the same ladles and spatulas anyway, making the whole point totally moot. The whole situation speaks of token face-saving gestures and cost-cutting. Get...

My son is a freshman at EMU. I didn't want to write this but here is what he says most of the time. He says his friends are mostly unhappy with the food as well:

They don't always have good food; once or twice a week is nice food. Sometimes , food doesn't feel like freshly cooked...even cold at times. Many times the food stations are out of food so unless you keep waiting you just need to eat whatever is available and go to your classes. Sometimes they are out of clean utensils. They don't always have what they display on the site menu or in the app. Hot dog is a common menu item; really? They keep calling it an american classic like people don't know what hotdog is. Opening hours suck; couple of days a week his class is until 7:45 pm and they close for dinner at 8 pm. Hours should be up to 9 pm. Friday and Saturday's also close at 6 pm. The meal plans are very expensive for freshmen; over $2500 for basically 3 and half months of the actual semester time. Now kids go home few weekends and so basically they feed like above low quality food to kids for about 3 months and charge over $2500 for the semester. That's like $27 dollars a day. The food quality should be better for this price imo. Our kids are charged enough but food and timings need to be improved.

We hope that EMU president...

Food is mediocre. Online menu is rarely accurate. Most food tastes like frozen precooked from a major company. Even though all they have to do is heat up the food they aren't very competent. If you complain to anyone they just laugh and walk away mumbling. I once got pink chicken tenders and soggy unseasoned fries. The pizza is either cut into 6 or 16 slices and sometimes the pepperoni has as few as 10 pieces on the pizza. The meatloaf has more grease than meat. The salad bar has brown lettuce, limp tomatoes, water in almost every pan. Most of the time they don't have orange juice. Their fruit in the fruit water looks like it has been recycled a few times. Rarely is anyone friendly. We are just an inconvenience to the staff. Many don't seem to understand that they are supposed to wear gloves and wash their hands. Try to find a clean table anytime. The condiment bar usually has a huge pile of condiments and dried condiments...