One of, if not, the most advertised aspects of Colgate as an incoming student prior to 2021 was the legendary status and capabilities of a 24-hour dining hall; the ideal dining service availability for late night grub, early morning fuel and spontaneous banter with Stacy. Last year was a fluke, I get it, but now, there is simply no excuse. Colgate Dining Services alleges the staffing, food options and cleaning capability is optimized with condensed hours. These are all legitimate reasons until you realize they expanded dining options within the COOP and Donovan’s, making it even harder to place their main focus and staffing attention on Frank. Would you rather our dining options be spread thin and compromise 24-hour Frank, or would you just like to have the original, more reliable Colgate Dining Service operations?

Now let us discuss the actual food options… The Omelette Bar, breakfast options, deli section and most of the lunches suffice and leave me satiated. We could definitely get rid of the weird grits over oatmeal phenomenon (we are in central N.Y., c’mon), but my complaints really only reside in the evening dining.

After exhausting all of their best food combinations, most of the pineapple and basically everything other than Dana’s famous cheeseburgers, the options for dinner are abysmal. My team finishes practice at 9:15 p.m. four days a week and we make the trip up the hill for about a 9:30 p.m. arrival to Frank. The options at this point of the day go as follows: pizza, more pizza, burgers, dogs, bread, bananas, apples and condiments/spreads. Not a whole lot to complain about, until this is the case for four days in a row. Frank “expanded” their hours to allow for a 12 p.m. closing, yet their food runs out by 8:30/9 p.m. I haven’t been to Frank past 10:30 p.m. this year, but I can only imagine how sad and dark it is there for late night munchies. The stories of 2 a.m. breakfast options and 24-hour dining in a fountain of deliciousness have since become aging folklore that, quite frankly, could just be lies to get students to come here.

The cherry on top for my frustration lies in the bleak reality that is late night dining in Hamilton; other than Slices and Oliveri’s, Frank is our only hope and we are being let down. I have tried Good Uncle, but I don’t want to go into debt for four chicken fingers. I have dabbled with Donovan’s, but I am left hungry hoping for bigger portions. When is this going to change? Maybe I am alone in this sentiment, but I doubt it. Let’s start a movement and instill some change in this hangry community. It’s not like we don’t have the funding, and it is definitely not like we have a massive student body that needs overwhelming amounts of food. Colgate Dining Services needs to refocus and stop trying so hard to get us to eat crusty Old Bay Salmon or satisfy the palates of an eight year old at Chuck-e-Cheese’s.