Market to Market, An Uncommon Cafe

(Original review 4÷10÷2013)
Run by contractor I.L. Creations, operator of weigh-​and-​pay-​buffet employee cafeterias in many Federal office buildings in the Washington DC area, this café should be placed under glass and marked «Don’t Break Here In Case of Emergency» (ie, it should be your food choice of absolute last resort!)
There are always days when I don’t have the time to pack lunch in the morning or to go out for lunch, and the operators of this café opportunistically exploit that to the max. I actually DREAD having to eat here. If I could give this place ZERO stars, I would… but alas, I was forced to give them one.
The place has your usual cold sandwich line, grilled sandwich line, weigh-​and-​pay salad and hot bars, and a random selection of hideously overpriced packaged goods. The buffet — while expansive, not to mention expensive — is frequently unappetizing (the cut «fresh» fruit, for example, is never ripe and usually inedible); prepared and cut (or one should say hacked into pieces) in such a way as to maximize the weight on the scales (which leaves one feeling violated, as a customer); and staggeringly overpriced (I must be crazy or starved or both to shell out $ 12 for a processed-​lunchmeat sandwich, chips, and a bottle of Dr. Pepper!) Also contributing to a feeling of violation are the many ways they nickel-​and-​dime customers by weighing and charging for condiments, cups of ice or water, and the like, and the obvious corner-​cutting, such as labeling a sandwich «oven-​roasted turkey breast» when it is, in fact, high-​sodium, processed lunchmeat turkey (which probably contains less than 10% actual turkey), or labeling a side dish «steamed mixed vegetables» and putting out a vat of canned string beans mixed with frozen carrots, both of which have virtually no nutritional value whatsoever.
Their greatest crime of all is the fact that many of their items on offer are spectacularly unhealthy — fried, full of sodium, drowned in dressings and sauces, and dripping in oil). This would be bad enough for everyone’s health anywhere, but this location’s unhealthy food selection is particularly egregious because the building houses thousands of employees of the US Dept of Health and Human Services… ie, the building is full of people with academic degrees in clinical nutrition, public health, nursing, and medicine. I suppose the café operators could make the argument that they are merely putting out what sells, and what people want to eat, but I suspect that there were very few technical specifications in their contract about what kinds of foods needed to be offered. Dining services at other HHS locations around the country have much healthier offerings, and I feel shortchanged when I realize that I am stuck with such a predatory, exploitative, and unappetizing cafeteria operator as this one.
Update # 1 (4÷23÷2013):
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, and expecting different results. I stopped in for lunch today, having few other options in the neighborhood, and was NAUSEATED after eating. Since when does pasta with pesto have gobs of mayonnaise in it?. This food is more disgusting than my high school and college cafeterias back in the dark ages of the 1980s, and we’re being forced to pay outrageous amounts of money on top of it. I can’t wait until this company’s contract is over.
Update # 2 (8÷26÷2014):
Foolish me. I thought things might get better. I’m glad that there are other offerings in the neighborhood now. It’s time for this place to go out of business. This week, I was served a sandwich on stale bread. Yum (NOT)! And was that — ew, gross — *OIL* I spotted on the melon balls? Where on Earth did these people learn how to cook?