Market Café

so, where do I begin? I would consider myself a pretty friendly and nice person, but I have to be the asshole who will call people out here. after many frustrating experiences with ADA compliance, customer service, sanitation, pricing, food safety, portion control, and other things amongst these, and many times end up fighting with the managers, I have fantasized I was Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, or some folk musician who could stir up a protest like some of these old talented singer can. I’ve sat in the cafeteria in tears on many occations, breaking down over horrible customer service, and the lack of compliance to the ada. then they try to fix things, and it’s like too late now, I am half done with my food and a mess!

«Best food in the city with the nicest most down to earth (and handsome) Eco educators working to help me with best thing from boy problems to trash problems» — Handsome Eco Educator, 2015

This place has a very good selection of food. Pasta, salads, sandwiches, Vietnamese street food, cronuts, and… Quickly? It can’t get any better than that! Oh, I did see $ 1.50 oysters one time. That was interesting.
Minus one star for the LINES. The place feels understaffed and the wait can be up to 15 minutes to get food. Not convenient when you’re in between classes and you can’t grab something to eat even to bring to your class without being late.
What I’ve heard from recent graduates is that Market Café has gotten a lot better than what it was in the past when they were attending USF. Fortunately I live off campus so I’m not tied to the area, but I still eat here most of the time because the food’s reasonable and convenient, again, when you’re not in a rush.

It’s on the USF campus, so the prices are set towards the convenience of lower division undergraduates that live on campus and have all types of money (Flexi Dollars) to blow on their flexi accounts.
Of course, I don’t live on campus nor have a flexi meal plan and I rarely patronize here because well… IT’S HELLA EXPENSIVE! But the food is good (I elaborate in the end).
I had to stick around on campus for a group meeting, and figured «I’ll get a snickers and a soda to hold me over for a few hours before I go home and have dinner». I get a Payday (no snickers? :() and a 20oz bottle of Coke, take it to the register and the guy starts to ring it up and I prepare my singles I wanted to get rid of… «$ 4.50»… I’m like «AL-​right?» And I break $ 10 (since I had no other change). I walked out thinking «both of these damn things were $ 4.50?! I could of got some halfway decent value meal for that!»
Also, the coffee is pretty expensive for some ALRIGHT coffee. Not Starbucks at all, but when I take a different route and miss the Starbucks down the street I have to manage with this place’s coffee. The medium cup costs about as much as a regular venti at Starbucks, that much I know. I try not to look at the price when I pay for it haha.
One thing though deserving of a half a star more (suggestion there Unilocal,half stars! Haha) is the actual food that’s prepared there. The entrees and specials ARE really good!
So if you get anything out of this review, please at least try the food! IT IS TASTY from my experience, and the price, well like I said above it’s gonna cost you if it’s most convenient for you.

Overpacked.
Not my sandwich. That was three star fine. Turkey. Tomato. Lettuce. Pickles. Wheat bread. Fuzed together in a panini press. Reasonable six bucks.
Referring to the line. Long. Felt bad for the one cashier and the one sandwich maker. Took about thirty minutes from start to finish.
Kudos to the duo for doing a great job despite the situation.

Is this a dining common? If it is, it looks and has better food than my college’s dining common. This place has the feel of a restaurant more than a cafeteria which was what my dining common felt like.
It is open to everyone who has money. The students have «meal plans» which is essentially just money on your student ID card. Why don’t they just use money you would ask? Even if the student loses the card they will still have the money in their account. Also, so parents know they will be eating and not spending cash on booze and other non essential items.
The food they offer is pretty good and green/​healthy conscious. It is very hard to gain the freshman 15 because you pay for each plate and/​or item. It is not a buffet style here and it is quite pricy for food.
There is make your own crepes, 500 calories or less, panini’s, ethnic, etc. There is a lot to choose from and it was quite hard to decide what to get.
My only qualm about this place is how the food are grouped together. I wanted to try one of the 500 calories meal for $ 7.75 which came with a reasonably big piece of salmon, parfait, and cole slaw. I don’t like cole slaw but why would I pay the full price to have one less item?