I want to start this off by emphasizing that I can't say enough good things about the workers at Val who serve food, swipe people in, and clean tables. They care about what they do, bring a lot of energy to their work, and are a pleasure to talk to. What I bring up in the rest of this review happens in spite of their efforts, not as a result of them.
I am a senior at Amherst College, so I've been eating at Val consistently for the past three years. Val has never been a good dining hall. It has a severe lack of options at all times of day except for breakfast, and the options that they do have are rarely very good. A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that Amherst is a small school which can't justify providing a huge variety of options for a small student body. The building itself is no longer suited to serving as a dining hall: there isn't the necessary seating, serving, or kitchen space. However, even with all this taken into account, the food is consistently disappointing. Steak, when they have it, is routinely cooked until it can't be cut. The "grilled" chicken is actually boiled, and is dry and flavorless. More often than not, I will leave Val after dinner still hungry, but unable to bring myself to eat more food.
This year, Val has somehow taken a turn for the worse. The food is unfortunately as bad as ever, but what has frustrated me to no end is the behavior and decisions of the management. For some reason, they seem to be intent on removing food options and doubling down on their worst meals. At dinners, the pizza was one of the consistent options that we could count on in case the main meal was the roast leg of lamb (truly awful). Inexplicably, several weeks ago, Val stopped serving pizza for dinner. This isn't because the machinery is broken; pizza is still served at lunch. This is also not because the space is being used to serve some other type of food. The space just sits empty and wasted every night. Removing pizza basically eliminates one fifth of the major food options, leaving only the main meal, the lighter side (usually either a vegetarian or vegan take on the main meal, "grilled" chicken, or fish), pasta, and salads. It's inexcusable. At the start of the year, they also eliminated about half of the cereal options, and removed the choice of 1% or 2% milk, leaving only full or skim milk. How these changes, removing options from an already scarce lineup, actually benefit students is far beyond me. But it doesn't stop there. Val meals rotate on a four week cycle, meaning that you'll have the same meal about once per month. For some reason though, chicken shawarma, one of Val's worst meals, has appeared on the menu for lunch four consecutive Mondays, and is scheduled for lunch again next Monday. This is the only meal that has been repeated like this, and I see no reason for it.
I would have a much easier time accepting this if the Dining Services management would give any justification for why they are implementing these changes. However, they do not seem to respond to suggestions anymore, or at least not to mine. Whether they intend this or not, the management is showing that they no longer care about student input. To make things worse, Val is more understaffed and understocked than I've ever seen before. One illustration of this: on a Wednesday night, lasagna was the main meal at Val. By the time I arrived at 6:45, they had run out of lasagna and were serving a pasta dish with meat in it. I ate one plate and went back for seconds, but by that point (about 7:00), they ran out of the pasta meal, and were telling people that it would take about 25 minutes until mac and cheese was ready to serve. Val closes at 8:30, so they had run out of the main meal at least an hour and 45 minutes before closing, and were not serving anything even related to what the main meal had been for at least an hour and a half. Looking for more food, I went to go make some toast, but there was no bread or butter in stock.
For the past few years, the saving grace of Val was that the management cared about student input and went out of their way to make changes that had support among the students. Those days are apparently gone. Dining Services at Amherst College have been a disservice to the students for years, and if they continue on the current trend, they ensure that they will continue down the path to abomination. read more