Ariana Rodriguez/Staff Writer
FIU students have a new haven, a place where they can detach themselves from all their classes just to focus on one thing: food.
Technically, it’s more of a haven for students who aren’t health-conscious, and vegans are the ones who will not find many options.
Roary’s Bay Café opened on Monday, Oct. 14 at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus. During the semesters before the café opened, students mostly relied on food trucks, free food events and Roary’s Bay Buffet, which didn’t have so many options. Now students can choose from five rotating menus, including burgers (with meat and non-meat options), pizza, salad, soup, homemade-style food, food from the mini market, and more.
Chikanma Pondexter/PantherNOW
But I still feel like I need to meal prep much on the days I have class at BBC. Most students love junk food, and that’s what’s mostly offered in Roary’s Bay Café. There, I can only rely on the limited home-made food section, soup and salad bar.
The menus are always changing to add diversity to students’ meals. I went to the café the day it opened, where they served chicken fingers, veggies, baked chicken and veggie soup; on Wednesday, hot dogs were served instead of the chicken fingers. I can certainly say they had some healthy options and a lot of not-so healthy options on the days I went there.
A few things will always be there like hamburgers, pizza, fries and fountain soda drinks. Students can get three sides and one entree plus a drink for $9. The choice is up to you whether you want your meal to be healthy or not.
I understand that the cafe will always have pizza, burgers, fries, nachos, cakes, soda and more junk food. I think that they should just add a few more healthy options. The two times I went to the cafe, I saw a small section for the healthy food. Vegans can mostly rely on vegan burgers, carbs, veggies and fruits, but that’s not enough for the non-meat eaters. They would have to eat their warm vegan chicken with their favorite sides somewhere else unless the café steps up their game a little more.
And then, of course, there’s Chick-Fil-A. It’s opening in January and that will definitely make the café better for most students. If they are going to add a Chick-Fil-A, though, they should add a vegan place for the health-conscious students.
It’ll be tempting to get some of the waffle fries, but I’ll let the other students enjoy that. It probably wouldn’t be hard if they had more options.
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Featured photo from FIU Flickr.
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