By Melanie Atwood, Y12
In LGB we have an incredible cafeteria that provides students and staff with a variety of different options, organized into different lines, such as the: sandwich line, salad bar, and two hot food lines. In the sandwich line it is possible to customize your own sandwich, to ensure it is exactly to your taste. The salad bar similarly has a diverse range of fresh fruit and veg, which you can select to create your ideal salad. The hot food lines change their menu on a daily basis making sure the best combinations are available for everyone, catering to vegetarians as well.
However, despite all the choice many students do not eat in our school’s cafeteria. Some bring a packed lunch as the cafeteria can be a little pricy, or to cater for their specific dietary requirements. Others do not eat in the cafeteria and go out of campus to find alternative food. The most popular locations close to school are: the Boulangerie known for its delicious salads and great pastries especially popular amongst the year 12 students, Road Runner across the street produces some of the best hamburgers in Geneva, the Tabac, which gives us some unhealthier options the cafeteria doesn’t provide us, and Palm an actual restaurant with a great selection of hot meals. Those who tend to have a little more time, take the tram downtown to seek out more places to eat. The students who do this are generally from Year 11 to Year 13 because they have the right to off campus but not the younger grades. Therefore, the younger grades generally order in their food from places such as: Dominos, Sushi Shop, Blaqk etc. Recently however, the school forbids any sorts of delivery to the campus, generating a lot of frustration, especially amongst the younger years: “the reason they are doing this is so the cafeteria doesn’t loose money” expressed a student from Year 10 and “they cannot force us to not order” claimed a student form Year 9.
Yet, if the cafeteria has such great choice, why do students still prefer to go out for lunch? This is down to several reasons. First of all, many students in school are vegetarian/vegan, and there is not always great selection for them in particular when it comes to the sandwich line. Secondly, Years 11 to 13 would rather eat off campus than in the cafeteria because there are some days where they cannot get into the cafeteria without a detour, queue and sticker. And on other days when they are allowed in without such a fuss, gone are ¾ of the lines and we are left with a very limited choice. Another big factor is that the cafeteria no longer serves unhealthy snacks, as it used to a few years ago as it now tries to promote a healthier diet. This in turn pushes the students to go and find the food they crave elsewhere. Lastly, the cafeteria tends to be quite time consuming and when you only have 45 minutes and a meeting for CAS, or need to finish some homework in the library; the students simply do not have enough time. “Every single line in the cafeteria is long because the space to wait for food is tiny” said a collection of students from Years 10 and 12 and “the student support are not always fair and let some cut the line and other who don’t cut, have to do the line all other again” explained a student for Year 10.
In conclusion, the school cafeteria has made numerous efforts by integrating a diverse array of foods from different places and switching the menu up every so often. The occasional sushi bar, a pizza bar, and fondue bar, really keep things interesting as possible. And the constant dedication of the cafeteria staff to keeping things fun by dressing the cooks up for school spirit, and decorating the cafeteria in different themes. We should be grateful to have such a great cafeteria compared to other schools, even though there is room for improvement, we should consider ourselves as lucky!
