The Amherst Town Food Scene: Weak, Expensive, and Mildly Offensive.

Meals are supposed to make you feel good. They are supposed to be a reliable, relaxing break from whatever twists and turns define your day. I just had a meal in town, and it did not make me feel good.

For starters, I headed to the Black Sheep (a deli/bakery with quite the good reputation). I had wanted to go to the always satisfying Subway but my eating partner insisted we get something of more substance.

Yet, we now know that the Black Sheep is not the place to go for something of substance.

We both got hot corn beef sandwiches, mine completely plain and his crammed with all sorts of condiments. Upon being served my plain corn beef sandwich, the server told me, “Jonathan, you have strange eating habits.” Ouch.

I gave her six dollars for my tiny corn beef sandwich, and she gave me an insult on the side. Under no circumstances should a server make judgments on a person’s eating habits. It is poor etiquette and in most cases, a dumb business decision.

After this underwhelming meal, I needed more.

All day, while walking through the blistering heat, I had decided I wanted to do one of two things: go for a swim or get a cup of frozen yogurt. The pool was closed by the time I got out of the lab, so getting frozen yogurt was the only option.

I decided to go to Bart’s, since Ben and Jerry’s does not sell frozen yogurt (I think). This was a giant, monumental mistake.

I ordered my fat free, vanilla yogurt thinking I would be getting a heaping mountain of soft-served yogurt—the price I paid sure made it seem like I should.

Yet, the server went for a scooper upon my order! There was no soft served yogurt! There was hard frozen yogurt!

I never knew such yogurt existed. It shouldn’t. The beauty of frozen yogurt is its smooth, creaminess.

Ice cream is hard, yogurt is soft. This should be a given, before tonight I thought it was.

My experience this evening was emblematic of the flawed Amherst town food scene. In a post later tonight, I will propose some solutions to rescue it from the sad state it is currently in.