Dining

If you think campus dining means dull cafeteria fare, think again. Think fresh and made-to-order. Think flavor and imagination. Think personal pasta dishes whipped up at your request by our sauté chef. And think about sending in a recipe from home for us to prepare for everyone—part of our “Favorites from Home” program.

You will find everything here from delicious comfort foods (waffle bar, anyone?) to a full range of healthy meals: natural, organic, locally grown, vegetarian, and vegan options, all with readily available nutritional information. In fact, at each meal you will find “Better Tomorrow for Your Health Plates,” carefully prepared to meet guidelines for excellent nutrition and moderate calorie totals. In addition, an on-campus dietitian can help plan meals for you if you have special dietary needs.

Meal Plans

All students living on campus are required to sign up for a meal plan. For those off campus, it’s optional. You’ll choose from a range of plans, offering a combination of pre-paid, all-you-care-to-eat meals and flex dollars, which can be used to purchase items at any of the campus dining locations. The idea is that you can decide how many traditional sit-down meals you would like in a dining hall setting and how often you’d rather have something quick on-the-go.

Additional options are available if you are an off-campus student, and more details on dining, including dining facility hours and menus, are available at www.drakeudining.com.

Campus Dining Locations

In the following locations, you can dine on your meal plan or use flex dollars:

• Hubbell Dining Hall—Drake’s main dining hall features all-you-care-to-eat stations such as the grill, international cuisine, home-style cooking, made-to-order deli station, soup and salad bar, and dessert bar.
• Quad Creek Café—Drake’s newest dining hall offers casual fare: burgers, fries, a Mexican station with made-to-order burritos, personal pan pizzas, sub sandwiches, a line-up of Asian cuisine, and more. With big-screen TVs and a stage for live music, the Café is a great spot to hang out with friends and offers a special flex-dollar appetizer menu of potato skins, waffle fries, quesadillas, and smoothies—all served until 1 a.m.

In the following locations, you can use flex dollars, Bulldog Bucks (see below), or cash:

• Olmsted Coffee Shop—Located in the student union, the coffee shop offers fresh-brewed Starbucks coffee plus smoothies, pastries, sandwiches, salads, wraps, and made-to-order paninis.
• Cowles Café—Hard at work in Cowles Library and ready for an energizing snack? Cowles Café couldn’t be more convenient. It serves Starbucks coffee, cold beverages, to-go sandwiches, and wraps.
• Spike’s Spot—Our campus convenience store, located in the lower level of Hubbell North, is handy for picking up snacks like granola bars, milk, frozen meals, ice cream treats, and chips.

Bulldog Bucks

For a flexible and convenient way to make food and other purchases, you can take advantage of our Bulldog Bucks program. Load money onto your Drake ID card and then use the balance on the card instead of cash at all campus dining locations plus athletic events, some vending machines, and a number of neighborhood restaurants. These include Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, Drake Diner, Godfather’s Pizza, Haiku Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi, Planet Sub, Starbucks at Drake West Village, Sunsation Spa, and Woody’s Smoke Shack.