Popular dining hall E. Bronson Ingram, located on Vanderbilt’s main campus within its residence hall, has been a hot commodity amongst students. Its sauté bowls, fresh produce, and wide variety of allergy-free foods has students visiting it consistently. But now, EBI has only gotten fresher and increasingly better, with the addition of a new fresh fruit smoothie bar.
Although you may have to reserve ten minutes of your lush EBI dining experience to stand in line for one of these smoothies, this improvement amongst the Vanderbilt dining experience has shown that they will abide by some of the (many) requests for additions/changes. The appearance of the line of people trailing far behind the actual smoothie station itself may be daunting, but in my opinion, the easy convenience of the process (along with the result, of course) proves to be worth it.
Upon picking out the specific fruit you would like to be included in your smoothie creation, you grab a cup and circle which liquid base you would like (water, orange juice, pineapple juice, and more), followed by writing down your name for easy pickup. Anytime I am ordering a smoothie from this new station, I feel they have the process down pretty well. The smoothie itself is blended the perfect amount, creating a smoothie that isn’t solely the consistency of water, but doesn’t contain those pesky chunks that clog up the prime sipping experience of a creamy, freshly made smoothie.
The timeliness and quality really shows to me how much Vanderbilt is attempting to make changes in dining to best satisfy the requests of the student body and quality of the food we receive. Overall, if I had to encourage you to try out a new dining hall experience, I would very much vouch for EBI smoothies all day. It is a convenience and (pretty) timely experience, and what better way to pair your meal with a drink to sip on that adds the cherry on top to what you thought was the perfect meal; it clearly just got more perfect!