The new Edge is suave.Blue glassware, table cloths, speakers playing a slightly outdated Green Day song, buzzers to let you know when your food is ready and free bread with your meal. Sound great?Not even close.In fact, other than its mildly appealing d?ecor, I can’t say one good thing about it.

The Cutting Edge, as it is now titled, is useless and has led to a massive dining crisis throughout the rest of campus.

Formerly a favorite weekend breakfast spot for athletes and other early risers, the Edge will now only function during dinner. Sorry to all you sophomores who picked to live in Bryan Complex because you thought you could just stroll down to the Edge in your PJs. Not only would such an outfit not fit in with the want-to-be high-class aura of the Cutting Edge, but also showing up on a whim won’t get you seated.This Edge is reservation only.

Dining services recommends that you place your reservation as much as ten (10!) days in advance — as if college kids know where and when they’ll be getting dinner over a week beforehand. These reservations are taken very seriously too.When I visited the Edge this evening I saw a couple standing off to the side waiting for something.Turns out they showed up at 5:55 for a 6:00 p.m. reservation and were told, “You’re too early.”They were forced to wait until six sharp to be seated.Mind you, I counted only three occupied tables in the whole restaurant.But my shock wasn’t over yet.My party of 13, which included non-student Colgate staff, was turned away, even though we made reservations over a week ago.Apparently they lost our reservation.Wow, only two days on the job and already they’re having problems with the reservation process!That doesn’t exactly bode well for the future.

Despite the fact that the Edge was barren except for one hour during the peak of suppertime, no accommodations were made to squeeze us in.Having been rejected by the Edge, I was left with only two options:hike it up to the Coop or fight the gargantuan lines at prime time Frank.I chose the former because a funny thing happened to me on Monday night when I went to dinner.It was 8:15 p.m. when I swiped my meal card at Frank Dining Hall. I approached the salad bar to find that all items were dwindled down to nothing! No more lettuce.No more pizza. Both soups were empty and the vegan line was picked over.I managed to scrape a few spoonfuls of rice out of the Entr?ee 1 line, but that was all. Frank had literally run out of food.

I should have expected it.Anyone who attended Frank for lunch on Monday saw what a fiasco it was.The dining hall’s capacity of 800, as it is clearly stated on a plaque in the front, was obviously overtaxed. Lines extended out the door and passed Alumni Hall. Seating was nonexistent for many hungry students. I, myself sat on a ledge in front of the fireplace, which was much nicer than the students I saw sitting on the floor! With approximately 750 first-years, and an equal amount of sophomores, plus many juniors and seniors on the five meal a week plan, there is no way for Frank and the Coop to feed all the students during lunch.The Edge used to make it possible.

I’m not hating on the idea of the Cutting Edge.It’s an innovation and I respect that, but practicality first.We cannot function with one dining hall, one fast food campus center and a limited restaurant.Some students here are old enough to remember Donovan’s Pub.It was closed to make room for the library last year while Case was being constructed.Even though its infrastructure remains, the Pub hasn’t been re-opened.That means Colgate took away one of our dining options last year, and then did it again this year.Admittedly, having a restaurant style facility on campus could be a fun change of pace, but couldn’t this have been accomplished in the old Donovan’s Pub inside the James C. Colgate Hall?We need another large scale dining area up the hill. Let’s bring back the old Edge and move this restaurant experiment down the hill to JCC.While I respect the administration and dining services for trying something new, I hope they can realize that this isn’t working.The new Edge is causing a campus dining nightmare, and because of that I cannot support the Cutting Edge Bistro.With God as my witness, I will never swipe my ‘Gate card there.