University of Utah Hospital Cafeteria

Best hospital cafeteria I have ever had! They have so many choices & guest restaurants for lunch. The cheesecake is to die for.

My wife is going into labor. Naturally, this is a time that begs a simple question: «how’s my tummy feeling?» Do I have enough calories to make it through the grueling and painful ordeal of supporting my wife through her vastly more grueling and painful ordeal? The answer is no. I gotta chow down before the shit hits the fan!
The salad bar has a lot of stuff. Like, lots of regular salad stuff, but also grilled veges, marinated veges, grilled chicken strips, fancy olives, roasted tomatoes etc. You pay by the plate size, not by the weight, so I advise you to fill that bastard to capacity. If you don’t have to use two hands to hold your tray, you don’t have enough weight on there.
There are so many other options here too, like a few different cook stations featuring made-​to-​order and pre-​prepped hamburgers, pizza, Mexican, Indian food etc. Different restaurants rotate through the week offering their product. They’ve got «gourmet» (fancily packaged?) cheeses, meats, yogurts, all kindsa protein bars and even sushi.
Breakfast is pretty good, with loads of fresh fruit, bagels, waffles, and a respectable biscuits and gravy. The cakes are excellent; way better than you’d expect.
Bottom line: I can’t escape the fact that I’m dining in a cafeteria. However, it’s a very good cafetetia. It’s expensive, but I consider it a surrogate birthday present to myself from a kid who is almost going to turn ZERO.

It’s excellent and convenient location helps for a quick meal. The food is just as expected.

If you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of being stuck in the hospital (not a patient, mind you) this is the closest and most convenient food source.
In my experience of staying with my sister (the patient) for a week, the food in the U’s hospital cafeteria is hit and miss and the hours that certain parts of the cafeteria are open can be confusing. I posted some pictures to help alleviate that confusion.
These are the good things —
The salad bar is fantastic. Lots of fresh ingredients and a variety of protein options are available. Some items seem to change out for variety but during the week I was there I always saw chicken, tofu, pepperoni, a variety of cheeses, and various nuts. Veggies included roasted asparagus, nice olives, artichoke hearts, and your other basic salad stuff. The salad bar is open most of the hours that the cafeteria is open (but not all).
The guest restaurant (Monday-​Friday) offers a better tasting meal than the other standard hospital food. The guest restaurant changes daily and they offer a trimmed down version of their menu (only a few options to choose from).
The deli station does a good sandwich. They use Boar’s Head products and the veggies and bread selections are fresh. Lots of meat is piled onto the sandwich. Plus the deli seems to have some extended hours over some of the other food stations. However, I was never really sure what their hours were. Some days it seemed it was open late and others it was not. Perhaps it was a weekday/​weekend thing but I did not see any posted hours.
The desert bar: I never tried anything from here but they all looked delicious. It is self serve so it is open whenever the cafeteria is open.
The grab and go has some good selections of salads, sandwiches, and sushi. This can be your only option if you come in after most of the other food stations close down. Late in the evening pickings get slim with the sandwiches and hearty salads gone first.
These are the mediocre things:
The daily special area (not the guest restaurant area) is your standard school/​military/​hospital cafeteria food. Pre-​portioned frozen or canned items warmed up. Very bland. But sometimes you just need a hot meal and the bland cafeteria option is better than nothing.
The grill area is hit and miss. They do a good grilled cheese (hard to mess that one up) but the burgers and fries are just meh. Fries are baked, not fried, and are the crinkle cut that you can get in the frozen food aisle of any grocery store.
Although I listed more good than bad things, what really frustrated me was the hours that these areas were open. The café is open most of the day but if you are not part of the lunch rush it may mean that you can only get something from the grab and go section. The cafeteria seems to mainly be available for day shift hospital workers, and specifically for the lunch crowd, that is when all of the options are available. So, for those of us who are not on the standard lunch schedule, the cafeteria hours and therefore the lack of options, can be frustrating.

Mediocre food for the level of culinary cuisine that appears on the surface.
Salad bar is over-​priced and «by the bowl» or «by the plate» so be prepared to shell out boku bucks if all you want it a side salad.
Their Reuben Grill sandwiches are good… Except they don’t put thousand island dressing on the sandwich. They «mix it in the with sauerkraut» as the grill cook told me when I went back to ask for a side of dressing. And no, they didn’t have a side of dressing to give me. Grrrrrreat.
So I went to the salad bar and paid $ 0.75 for a side of thousand island. Not happy.
Next time I’ll just take the Reuben to the salad bar and put some on myself.
Also, they have the automatic change dispensers, which every person puts their dirty hands into. Let’s remember we are in a hospital. And this is the last thing you touch before you eat. Get out the Purell!

Prices are great, food is great, there is plenty to choose from and some items rotate everyday! Great place to eat in the area.

If only a zero star score was possible, then I would be able to appropriately rate this hospital’s cafeteria. They take advantage of the people who go to a hospital cafeteria. Is the university trying to make up budget shortfalls through excessive overpriced food?
I bought a bake potato today, it cost $ 6.50. It was a normal sized potato with a little chili and cheese, but they want to charge people as it was some kind of golden spud.
It is shameful that this hospital sees fit to exploit their patients’ family members and staff by charging so much for pitifully tasting food.
I have been to other hospital cafeterias, their food was of the same poor quality as the U’s, but they don’t charge you an arm and a leg for it.

Absolutely without a doubt, this is the BEST salad bar EVER!!! Delicious, fresh, fantastic taste and unbelievable price!!! Thank you for making the hospital experience bearable!!!

I have one complaint: the french fries are baked. I’m not into french fries, but when I really want an order of fries once a year, the hospital cafeteria fries are unsatisfying. That said, their fries are not bad; they’re good in fact, but they’re not really fries.
Aside from the fries, I’m constantly surprised at how good their food is. Their entrees are well-​executed most of the time, although there are rare exceptions. They also have guest restaurants every day, they open early and stay open late, they serve on Sundays, and the employees are all nice people.
Also, and this is very much a positive, they don’t have «fry sauce». For those of you who have not spent more than an hour in Utah, fry sauce is equal parts mayonnaise and ketchup. Many Utahns claim that the world has Utah to thank this condimentary «innovation».
When I was in third grade (not in Utah), the cafeteria would serve us tater tots. Several of us liked to eat our tots with a mixture of mustard and ketchup. A lot of the fourth graders did it, so I thought it made me seem more grown up. I called it «tot sauce», because it tasted good on tater tots. Whenever I mentioned tot sauce, Danny Humphreys would yell «It’s not tot sauce! It’s not made of tots! It’s just mustard and ketchup!!»
I later realized Danny was right — by mixing two condiments that are often served together, I had not made so significant an innovation in condiment technology to warrant a new name, let alone a misleading one.
Danny would later become a cop, but he taught me that naming an obvious thing that already exists isn’t the same thing as inventing something.
So no «fry sauce» in the University Hospitals cafeteria. You’ll have to mix your own, like I do when I want tot sauce, like a grown-​up. The mayonnaise is right next to the ketchup. You could also ask the cashier like a second grader, but you’ll get the same answer.
Oh, also their pastries are excellent. Fancier than you’d expect from a cafeteria, but all of them are just damn good. Pair with coffee.

Rotating guest restaurant every Monday through Friday, a punch card for frequent eaters, and really one of the best spinach wraps I’ve had anywhere.
For somewhere you don’t want to eat unless you have to this place does just enough to make you forget you’re in a hospital.