Harvest Cafe

The Harvest Café is the new name for the Cafeteria at SLAC. It was called the «Linear Café». After a month-​long shutdown in the summer of 2012 (that was supposed to be two weeks), the cafeteria re-​opened. It is managed by «Residential & Dining Enterprises», an entity, to the best of my understanding, which is part of Stanford University.
Many of us at SLAC had high hopes for the Harvest Café. We thought that the prices would be lower than the high prices of the previous cafeteria operator. Were we in for a surprise. MUCH, MUCH higher prices, MUCH, MUCH lower variety. The food quality is OK, but not commensurate with the cost.
For example, they use to have FAGE brand yogurt as well as mass market yogurt like Danon. Now, it’s only the Danon. They only have one type of milk, 2% fat. Real places would have two or three type of milk; no-​fat, low-​fat and whole milk. The coffee sold, even the largest one, is too small. For the price they charge, I’m buying elsewhere. For breakfast, the menu was «scrambled eggs» (eggs poured out of a carton: imagine a sponge that has a fake scrambled egg taste), either bacon or some kind of sausage, and tater-​tots or hash browns. A couple of other items, like a small juice, drip coffee, toast or an apple are included. However, scrambled (fake) eggs, meat and potatoes every day gets old real quick.
Last year, the Harvest Café was shut down a week prior to the holiday shutdown. No holiday lunch from them! Instead of the Café, there was what is known as a roach-​coach, a truck set up as a kitchen to prepare and sell short-​order items to sell to people at construction sites. The reason for this sudden shutdown was because of a rodent infestation. This should have been taken care of when they were shut down for a month the previous summer. Ignore the big food and safety issues and just make the place look prettier. Way to go. Also, for the first time in my over 20 years at SLAC, there was NO site-​wide holiday lunch. Huge slap in the face to us who work at SLAC and to the many SLAC retirees who would attend the lunch to stay in contact with friends and co-​workers.
Well, this food truck has the «Stanford Gourmet» on it. This translates to expensive and mediocre quality. I had one lunch there and then made other arrangements. We were told that the Harvest Café was closed for «technical reasons». Yeah, right.
Now, the Harvest Café is shut down. The building it is in, as well as the Panofsky Auditorium and Visitor Center are being torn down. A big new showpiece structure will replace them. In the mean time, we will have no cafeteria. There is that same «Stanford Gourmet» food truck and perhaps a different one added at a later date. There was supposed to be a coffee and light breakfast items stand near the Stanford Guest House at SLAC. Well, this coffee and light breakfast item stand has not happened. I have been told by someone at the Guest House that this will not happen until next month. Someone else told me that it won’t be until the month after that (November).
Too late, business opportunity missed. I will have made my own adjustments and have gotten use to them by then. Last week, I did stop by the «Stanford Gourmet» truck and looked at the menu. They cook and serve things like burgers and have sandwiches available. I looked at the sandwich list and the ham, cheddar cheese and avocado sandwich seemed appealing. $ 7.50! Make it a «meal» includes a can of (slightly cooled) soda and a teeny bag of sun chips $ 10.00! I was hungry, so I made it a meal. BIG mistake.
Let me make this clear: «Stanford Gourmet» is not gourmet. After two bites of the sandwich, I opened it up and ate the ham and the cheese. I have never seen avocado sliced so thin. I tried to eat some of it as well, but it just kept breaking up as I tried to fork it off of the bread. I threw the rest of the sandwich away.
I will absolutely NEVER be going back to this outfit. They are «NOT ready for prime time» and this is one of those cases where you do NOT get what you pay for. For $ 10, you can do much better elsewhere.
I will be bringing in food items from Costco, Safeway, or whatever and some good friends at SLAC and I will have our own lunch together. We will go out sometimes as well.
Anyway, there is somewhat of a bright spot. The people actually behind the counter doing the cooking and food prep so seem to be competent, pleasant and cheery. They work hard because the place is understaffed and I’m certain that they weren’t paid much. A silver lining to this dark cloud. I hope these people have secured good employment elsewhere.
My expectations for the new cafeteria that will open in two or so years are pretty low. I expect value for my money and it just isn’t at the Harvest Café.
Overall, I cannot recommend the Harvest Café. Pretentious, underachieving and overpriced.