Lunch awaits. Your friends are nowhere to be found. Walking down Wittpenn Walk, you are tasked with deciding between Pierce Dining Hall or ordering online on Grubhub. As the wind whips around your body, you debate between two possibilities: do you hope someone will sit with you? Or, eat alone?
That small decision reflects a larger shift in Stevens dining. Over the past few years, the school has adopted digital ordering, utilizing self-service kiosks in the University Center Complex (UCC), integrating Grubhub across campus, and implementing a food locker system (primarily used by Piccola Italia and the Grab and Go) designed for quick pickup. At the UCC, pickup is nearly frictionless. Students can order food while walking between classes, which is ideal for those with busy schedules who may not have time for a full sit-down meal at Pierce. The result is speed and convenience, but also a dining experience that can feel more transactional than communal. Even if you are sitting at the tables in the UCC, the entire experience feels sterile; pick up your food, get your drink, and sit at the tables. That’s not communal – just a way to get fed.
Of course, the UCC isn’t without its flaws. While the kiosks and lockers are meant to streamline service, students frequently point to Yella’s as an example of how the system can still feel sluggish. Orders sometimes take longer than expected, stretching up to three hours in the evening, leaving students waiting awkwardly in front of the pickup counter. Combined with complaints about the overall mediocrity of the food, it becomes difficult to say that ordering food digitally is more “convenient”. What is clear, though, is that the convenience promised by kiosk culture doesn’t always match the lived reality.
Pierce Dining Hall offers a stark contrast. While many students are quick to point out the mediocrity of Pierce’s food — the limited variety, the hit-or-miss quality, and the occasional long lines — the hall still functions as a space for community. Even if you walk in alone, you might run into someone from class, share a table with another student, or chat with staff serving food. Meals at Pierce may not be gourmet, but they provide opportunities for conversation and connection that are increasingly rare in the UCC.
This difference highlights a broader divide between speed and social life. Digital systems like kiosks and Grubhub prioritize convenience above all else, stripping dining down to its most basic function: getting food into students’ hands. But historically, college dining halls have been more than just cafeterias. They have been places where friendships form, ideas are exchanged, and students take a break from the grind of classes. Pierce, despite its shortcomings, continues to fill that role at Stevens.
Students now live in a dining culture with two competing models. On one side, the UCC represents the future of food service — highly automated, individualized, and efficient. On the other hand, Pierce holds onto the traditional dining hall spirit, where meals are about more than eating quickly before the next commitment. Having both options gives flexibility, but it also means students must choose between efficiency and connection.
If kiosks and food lockers eventually become the dominant model, Stevens risks losing the unplanned, everyday interactions that help make campus feel like a community. Convenience is valuable, but it comes at a cost — and sometimes, the most meaningful part of a meal isn’t the food, but the people you share it with.
