By Racheli Jian, Senior Arts & Culture Editor and Layout Editor
Food: it’s at the center of our lives. We need it to survive but it’s also a vital part of how we celebrate. Cakes are a part of our birthdays, challah sits on our Shabbat tables and soon we’ll be eating turkey for Thanksgiving. We also rely on food to enhance the more mundane meals that make up our daily routine. Once in a while, people may rely on restaurants to provide their meals. It might not be a home-cooked meal, but it’s often good enough. But, what happens when it’s not?
According to this year’s Mayor’s Management Report, in 2024, 86% of restaurants across the five boroughs received an A health grade, about 10% less than the percentage in 2019. Still, this should mean that most restaurants have an acceptable health rating. However, the restaurant options that YU students eat at don’t reflect these statistics.
The YU meal plan permits students to use their money in the form of FLEX dollars, which can be used at various restaurants. For most of the meal plans, excluding the commuter plan, each student gets between $205-$440 of FLEX dollars. While it is unlikely an average college student would rely on restaurants for their meals, YU students can choose to spend their money at certain establishments until the allotted FLEX dollars run out. There are about seven options in Washington Heights and two options near the Midtown campus. To reflect the percentage of the rest of NYC, only one restaurant (but ideally none at all) should have a below-A health rating to match the New York statistics. However, of the seven restaurants that are rated, two of them have a below-A rating and one of them has a grade pending.
The two establishments in the Heights with a subpar rating are Chop Chop and Golan Heights. The latter is an unusual case since it has two reports. One report lists the restaurant as grade pending and the other lists it as a C rating. This is likely due to the new owner who acquired the restaurant at the end of this summer. However, according to the New York City Health Department, the C rating was awarded in June, 2024 due to live cockroaches in the “facility’s food or non-food area.” Similarly, Chop Chop was awarded a B rating for “evidence of mice or live mice in [the] establishment’s food or non-food areas.”
On the Midtown campus, while Kosher in Midtown technically has a current grade pending status, in July, 2024, the health department raised even more issues with the restaurant than its Heights counterparts. There was evidence of mice, rats and flies in the food and or non-food areas. This was in conjunction with failure to meet basic sanitary requirements such as washing the food contact surface properly.
While these restaurants are subpar in their sanitary and health requirements, this doesn’t stop business. A prime example of this is the 245 Lexington Avenue cafeteria on the YU Beren campus. While its rating, according to the New York City Health Department, is a C, which was awarded due to evidence of mice, this doesn’t prevent students from frequenting one of their only options for a meal. The 215 Lexington Avenue cafeteria doesn’t have a reported health rating. This usually means that the kitchen has not been inspected by the Health Department. This should be alarming considering that the cafeteria the school chose to have the Health Department inspect was awarded a C. It is unclear if the 215 Lexington cafeteria is at the same or below the level of cleanliness as the 245 Lexington Cafeteria.
For most restaurants, there is a certain pressure to keep a good health rating. It influences the establishment’s reputation and how much business it will attract. However, for YU students, the pool of restaurants to choose from is limited. While there are other Kosher restaurants near both campuses that have acceptable health standards, there are only a handful that will accept the money allocated to a YU meal plan. On top of that, since there is a limited amount of FLEX dollars, as opposed to the average of $2000 for the regular cafeteria money, students are essentially forced into eating subpar food.
This phenomenon, known as a Captive Market, means that the intended consumers, in this case YU students, have a very limited number of competitive suppliers. This forces the consumer to either make a purchase that they may not be happy with or make no purchase at all. When it comes to food, this translates to eating food that may be unsanitary or not eating at all, which is a common sentiment with YU students.
There are already so many restrictions that come with being a Kosher diner, but the failure to meet basic health requirements makes the simple process of having a meal so much harder. Each business has the responsibility to make sure that they value their customers enough to provide them with satisfactory food.
Photo Caption: Kosher restaurants near YU’s Wilf campus
Photo Credit: Emily Goldberg