And students cite a variety of factors--particularly movies and other entertainment paraphernalia--as contributing to the atmosphere of a grill.

The Cabot Grill, for example, has an adjoining room which contains a pool table, a ping-pong table, three arcade games, a Foosball machine and a piano. The large-screen TV and VCR are in another room.

The Lowell Grill has only a small TV and some furniture. The Foosball machine stands broken in one corner.

Foosball, however, is not the only draw for grill customers. Students and owners agree that grills with regular showings of movies entice more students to come each night.

Quincy, Kirkland, Cabot, Eliot and Leverett all show movies every night they are open. At some grills, students say, the movies attract more people than the food.

"People just come for the movies," says Stanley of the Eliot House grill. "The food is not the best here. This grill is not the focal point of House life."

But in many grills all the atmosphere is only an extra with what students say is actually pretty good food.

Students and grill owners say that the most popular foods are pizza, hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. Popular side-orders include frappes, mozzarella sticks, milkshakes, french fries and nachos.

But in three of the Houses, a new food innovation is surpassing all the old standards in popularity. Mather, Quincy and North have all recently acquired frozen yogurt machines.

"We don't come here a lot, but we'll come here a lot more now that they have frozen yogurt," say Cris Paglinauan '92, a resident of Quincy House.

And Judy Melinek '92, another Quincy House resident, says she has been at the grill every night since they got "the fro-yo machine."

Bringing in a Profit

The grills are--for the most part--profitable, owners say, claiming a net profit of $20--150 a night. The Kirkland grill boasts the highest estimated profit, despite the fact that they only have an average of 50 customers a night.

"It's because of the number of varsity athletes," Ramos says. "They eat more."

The profit in each of the grills is distributed differently. In North, Leverett and Cabot, the grill owners keep whatever money they can make.