History — and science — have shown us that food brings people together. The dining table creates a space for not only sharing company and forging friendships, but time for debate, discussion, the exchange of ideas — and possibly even an opportunity to solve a problem set or two.
As such, Caltech has designed its dining experience to provide students with an opportunity to enjoy meals together. Whether in their residences or in one of the other cafes or the marketplace on campus — students, faculty, and staff can dine together.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at The Lee F. Browne Dining Hall (formerly the Harry Chandler Dining Hall), Red Door Marketplace and in the residences' Open Kitchen. On weekends, these locations are still open for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner, students are encouraged to explore the offerings of Pasadena or their own culinary skills in residential kitchens. On the northwest corner of campus, Broad Café, also serves up breakfast and lunch, Monday through Friday. This mixture of locations provides students with the broadest of flexibility in choice of dining options, as well as timing to best meet individuals' academic and extracurricular activity schedules.
Student residence kitchens remain open between meals so that students can get sandwiches, drinks, ice cream, salads, cereal, or other snacks.
Vegetarian and vegan entrees are available at every meal.
Caltech Dining Services (CDS) strives to meet all special dietary requirements. From kosher food to gluten free, from halal food to the paleo diet—the dining team can handle it all.
CDS is committed to sustainability, providing compostable to-go containers and composting all food waste from its kitchens.
To ensure quality, CDS management eats the dinners that are served to the students every night; if the CDS team doesn't want to eat it, they won't serve it.
