After a long night studying for a midterm, Adeline Choi ’24, hoped to skip the Whitmans’ dinner rush by placing a 7:30 p.m. order at Lee Snack Bar. But she arrived a few minutes late, only to find her order missing from the pickup shelf. “Right now, I am pretty infuriated,” Choi told the Record, moments after she found her order missing. “I was just planning to grab and go, but now I have to wait for [dining staff] to remake my order.”
Students at the College can schedule orders for pickup at various dining venues through the GET Mobile app on their phones. Options include Lee Snack Bar, Fresh-n-Go, Eco Cafe, and ’82 Grill. By ordering ahead, students can save time between classes or eat a consistent, personalized menu item. However, there exists an all-too-familiar epidemic of students finding their orders stolen, leaving them rushing to class without breakfast or running late after the staff remake their order.
If there’s one way to bother a hangry student, it’s to steal their food, students reported.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, many students at the College eat lunch from 12:35 to 1:10 p.m. in the gap between class blocks, causing high traffic in the dining halls. “I think [theft] happens mostly during that short lunch slot,” Akiko Jindo ’25 guessed from personal experience: Her Lee Snack Bar lunch fell prey to theft last Tuesday. “I was definitely feeling devastated and mad,” she said. “I have a 21-meal plan, but if someone is on a 14-meal plan or fewer, it can be even more frustrating for them.”
But theft happens during quieter hours, too. Duncan DeProfio ’27 arrived at ’82 Grill on a slow Saturday afternoon to find that his pizza was taken. “I was disappointed because I was hungry and tired,” he said.
When someone steals an order, dining staff will remake the meal, which can be a hassle during busy periods. “I also felt bad asking the workers to remake my order because they had to work an extra 15 minutes,” DeProfio said. “We’re not the only victims here.”
“I hear [theft] happens a lot at Lee Snack Bar and ’82 Grill,” Eco Cafe Attendant Ildiko Bodor said. However, order theft in Eco Cafe is rare — likely due to the limited menu and slower traffic — but students have a right to be frustrated, Bodor said. “I understand — I would be mad if I was hungry and my food was taken,” she said. “[When it happens,] I apologize, and we do whatever we can to help kids rushing to class.”
One stolen order can often cause an avalanche of meal mishaps, several students said. One student’s decision to swipe a sandwich leaves the victim at an ethical crossroads — do they take someone else’s order, or kill precious time asking for a remake?
“I’ve never stolen an order, but I’ve been tempted if mine was taken,” Daria Lukinova ’26 said. “It’s a moral dilemma.”
Passing on the burden of a missing order isn’t possible for students with dietary restrictions. “I’m vegan, so I can’t just take another order,” Jordan Liss-Riordan ’27 said. Her midday Beyond Meat burger was taken from Lee Snack Bar last Thursday. “I was in a rush, so I just left and had to wait until dinner.”
Mike Ma ’26 considers the issue to be rooted in a deeper lack of courtesy among students. “[Order theft] reflects bigger problems,” he said. “It’s a broader culture of insensitivity.” Ma became passionate about the subject after many of his orders were stolen last year. “You either don’t care, or you’re not thinking about how this could screw up someone’s routine,” he said.
To further investigate the prevalence of order theft, the Record sent out a survey to 500 randomly selected students. Among the 84 respondents, 72.9 percent reported having an order stolen this year. However, 12.9 percent of students anonymously self-reported having stolen at least one order this year.
When asked which meal is stolen from them most often, 56.5 percent of respondents said lunch and 21.2 percent said dinner. However, among respondents who reported having stolen orders, there was an even split between breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night theft.
Some students said they believe Dining Services should change how they deliver orders, such as having dining staff distribute orders to students individually. Ma’s suggestion is more optimistic. He believes that if individuals can adhere to the honor system, this problem will quickly be resolved. “It would be great to keep things the way they are, and just stop the stealing,” he said. “Let’s just let people receive the food they order.”
