Dining

How to Safely Spend Your BRB’s 

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I really thought that Cornell students would have greater control over the way they spend their BRB’s. BRB’s, formally known as “Big Red Bucks” are the currency that lets Cornell students purchase food and drinks from cafes like Libe Cafe, Cafe Jennie, Mac’s Cafe etc., around campus. Spending your BRB’s differs from using a meal swipe, and each meal plan at Cornell differs in the amount of swipes and BRB’s a student is able to use. Time and time again, Cornell students either hoard their bucks or spend them all halfway through the semester. But what is the correct (and best) way to spend your BRB’s?

Columns

GUEST ROOM | Big Red Bucks are a Big Red Rip-Off

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Hannah Master ‘23 is beginning to worry. It’s already April, and she still has $300 in Big Red Bucks left in her account. She nibbles on a Terrace burrito while internally debating whether she should grab coffee at Libe Cafe before her architecture class. In truth, she would rather have gotten her lunch and coffee at Temple of Zeus, but alas, they don’t accept BRBs. Master’s phone lights up — a text from a friend asking to get lunch at Collegetown Bagels.

Affordability

KIM | Big Red Hunger

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With the semester coming to an end with four more weeks of school left, I took a peek at how many BRBs I had left. Opening the GET app has always been a moment of tension and anticipation. BRBs, despite being just regular money labeled in special Cornell jargon, represent my special Martha’s Cafe salad money, my midday hazelnut latte money and my Chobani mango yogurt money. BRBs are special and are my resource for funding my meals on a daily basis. With the lack of dining halls accepting meal swipes, the amount of BRBs I have determines the fate of my next meals.

amit bhatia libe cafe

DZODZOMENYO | Digest the Unpalatable Truth About Your Soup

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In contrast with Zeus’s “bright work areas and healthy local food choices” as advertised on its website, the Syracuse-orange haze and pre-packaged, microwaveable foods in Amit Bhatia Libe Cafe seem like what consumer theorist Alfred Marshall would call a package of inferior goods. But I suppose I resist the argument that Zeus is better than Libe because the justifications only consider the merits of one eatery over the other. Let’s not kid ourselves: Nowhere in the John M. Olin Library outside of free pizza on finals week will you find edible food. But that’s not the point. Libe is where most of us have messed around since freshman year, before we were cool enough to discover Zeus.