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Harvard University Dining Services walked back spring 2025 changes to its weekend dining hall menus on Tuesday after students complained that the new options were “junk food.”
HUDS introduced the “Pub Night” theme, serving mozzarella sticks and burgers on Fridays and pizza and chicken tenders on Saturdays, in an attempt to draw students back to dining halls on the weekends.
But outcry among undergraduates prompted a swift about-face.
“Effective immediately, we are transitioning back to the old menus and style of service, to include traditional hot entrees, starches and vegetables,” HUDS spokesperson Crista Martin wrote in an emailed statement on Tuesday afternoon.
She added that HUDS made the switch after receiving “feedback from some number of students who did not appreciate the menus and wished us to return to the previous dinner formats.”
Martin wrote in a previous statement on Friday that the changes were designed to serve students “some of their favorite menu items on a night when they might normally head into the Square to enjoy these same foods.” She added that the changes were designed to help students save money and keep dining halls lively.
Dining hall attendance was higher than at the same time last year, according to Martin’s Tuesday statement, which noted that the Pub Night menu drew compliments from some students.
But prior to the reversal, many students aired their dissatisfaction with the new menus online and in interviews with The Crimson.
Somto M. Unini ’26 said that she thought the Pub Night menu was “fun” but lacked nutritious options.
“Dinner, I feel, is the meal that HUDS does make like an actual meal — like entree, vegetable, lots of nutritional variety and availability,” Unini said. “And I don’t know if this food is doing that.”
One post with more than 400 upvotes read, “HUDS tonight is giving school lunch pre michelle obama” — invoking the former first lady’s efforts to improve the nutritional standards of school lunches.
Some students said they were particularly frustrated by the limited options for students with dietary restrictions.
Arjun Nageswaran ’25, who is vegetarian, said on Saturday that the current selection “makes it difficult to find a nice warm meal when your only choices are between mozzarella sticks and burgers.”
Taj S. Gulati ’25, sitting in the Eliot House dining hall for dinner on Saturday, pointed to his vegan friend and said, “That guy is just eating like a bowl of black beans every day. It’s insane how bad it is.”
Martin wrote on Friday that in response to student complaints HUDS staff recently updated the weekend menu to include a hot vegetable in the Friday entrée line and a gluten-free pizza option on Saturday upon request.
Nageswaran said he thought students might appreciate having more snack options — but that this semester’s changes had gone too far.
“It seems they might have gone a little bit in the extreme end, where they replaced the actual entrees with the junk food items, so I think trying to find a balance there might be good,” he said.
“The other day it was like chicken fingers, chicken tenders for lunch. There was chicken tenders for dinner,” Gulati said. “I can’t do this. It’s so much fried food.”
But multiple students said they missed the Nashville hot chicken sandwich that HUDS used to serve on Friday nights — which was recently discontinued — and requested that HUDS reintroduce it.
“It was the one item that we’d look forward to like three, four days in advance,” Sungjoo Yoon ’27 said.
Martin wrote in her Tuesday email that HUDS would return to serving the sandwich on Fridays.
“Because we plan menus and procure ingredients three weeks in advance, we will make this transition as expeditiously as possible but ask for student patience as we complete the switch,” she wrote.
—Staff writer Katie B. Tian can be reached at katie.tian@thecrimson.com.
