Forbes Family Cafe

I asked whether the pizza was vegetarian. They said yes. Then I asked to see the mozzarella that they used, and it had animal rennet. I tried to call the parent company to know more about this, but they never called back. They didn’t answer my email either.

As a grad student whose office was in the Stata Center, I ate lunch here quite a few times. Let me just start out by saying that the only times I get food from here are when it’s winter or when I’m pressed for time.
They have pizza, boxed sushi, and a main line that varies daily. The food variety is not great, and the quality is good, but nothing to call home about. Occasionally, they have some gems (their Thanksgiving food is awesome). The staff is also friendly.
The seating area is often packed, so it’s hard to actually eat here. The best option is usually to get food to go.

It’s decent for a school based cafeteria. Things are overpriced but what can you do if you are rushing between classes and have no time to get food anywhere else.

The food in the main area is average (college cafeteria fare), but the «Starbucks» coffee station is a cheap, over-​priced imitation of a real Starbucks. Their «ventis» are the sizes of «grandes» (meaning the larges are actually mediums), but the prices are same as real venti/​large sizes at a real Starbucks. Considering that Starbucks isn’t all that cheap to begin with, this seems like a sleazy move.
Some of the staff is fine, but a number of them are wildly rude and/​or incompetent, which isn’t ideal when you’re trying to obtain caffeine first thing in the morning. I’d recommend just walking to a real Starbucks if you have the time.

I’m upgrading my review of the Forbes Family Café at the MIT Stata Center from one to two stars because of their staff. I’m a regular there only because it’s a convenient place to get coffee.
Today, the customer in line ahead of me ordered a $ 4.07 cent «cup of something» for which the cashier returned change from $ 10.00. The customer immediately claimed she had given the cashier a twenty.
At first, the cashier balked and became a little flustered; I believe she truly thought the customer had given her a ten. She even turned to me and asked if I knew, but unfortunately I hadn’t noticed and couldn’t help. At that point, the cashier graciously gave the customer another $ 10.00 in change, even though I sensed she still was not convinced she’d made an error.
That old cliché of a rule, «The customer is always right» is often ignored by businesses, but also can be misused and abused by customers. In this case, the cashier, when faced with an uncomfortable situation and needing to make an immediate decision, chose to give the customer the benefit of the doubt. That scores positively with me!
I hope, if indeed she was handed only a ten, the cashier isn’t troubled worrying about it all day. Having worked as a cashier myself at many places (a long, long time ago), I know it’s inevitable that this exact scenario will happen to you sooner or later. After it first happened to me, I adopted the habit of when taking any bill from a customer’s hand, routinely saying, «from ten» or «from twenty» etc. Some cashiers always place the currency received on the little shelf above the cash drawer while making change. That’s not really practical though, and doesn’t help after the transaction’s been completed.
As a customer on the other side of the counter, and after having been burned by cashiers (not here) who really did make such an error, yet not correct it, I adopted the same practice when handing my money to a cashier. I make a particular effort to announce the amount I’m handing over if it’s more than half the amount of the order, and/​or if I’m including coins. Nowhere is this more important than at drive through windows where your money is taken out of sight before change is returned and where, unscrupulous people are too often employed. Need I say more?
Anyway, kudos to the cashier at the Forbes Family Café at the Stata Center cashier, who did the right thing today!

The Forbes Family Café is a slapped-​together combination of a coffee stand, boxed sushi stand, sandwich counter, pizza place and cafeteria. Somehow it all works together. There’s lots of tables and some booths indoors, and right around the corner outside is the Stata outdoor ampitheater, where lots of people eat outside. The Café accepts, cash, credit cards and MIT TechCash (students get their food tax-​free).
The café is Starbucks-​style, but I’m not sure what kind of coffee they serve. They also have overpriced baked goods, just like all coffee shops.
My favorite thing to get here is the grilled chicken Caesar wrap (the one they make for you, NOT the prepackaged one in the cooler). It tastes really good, and it’s actually filling for a salad wrap. While it’s not exactly diet food, I think it’s not too bad nutrition-​wise. They also have ready-​made sandwiches and will custom-​make them for you, if you’re patient enough to wait.
The pizza and calzones are actually quite good here, but I have a cholesterol problem so I’ve kind of sworn off these. The pizza is not pricey once you consider the size of the slices here. If they have the BBQ pork calzone on the day you go, it’s pretty good.
Stuff to avoid here: the sushi boxes. Expensive for what it is, which is bad sushi. If you must get one of these, the California rolls are better than the actual salmon/​tuna combos. The prepackaged foods are not so cheap and not so good — the hummus-​taboulleh pita is an exception to that. They used to have this awesome yogurt parfait there, but I think the current incarnation is not as good.
They also serve American breakfast and have pre-​made breakfast sandwiches. The food section of the café closes around 3−4PM, so no dinner. All in all, not bad.

Okay, it’s lame to review this because, well, do some of us really have a choice about eating here? I eat here all the time, but when it’s cold outside and you’re on MIT’s east campus, where else do you eat lunch? Biocafe, maybe, but it’s too damn small, plus all the people discussing their current work from the lab kind of depresses me… No good gossip to overhear, you know?
Eating here can involve a bitter battle for territory, like those National Geographic shows about animals at the watering hole. The food ain’t great and it’s certainly overpriced. There are probably ten or twenty hot dishes on the menu that get rotated. There’s always pizza, sushi, and sandwiches. Juice and pre-​made salads and pastries for purchase. Pretty predictable café fare. But the people-​watching can kind of make up for it, and I like to write my papers (or whatevers) here because there’s good background noise so that I don’t get bored.
One note:
«Starbucks»: PLEASE stop burning your coffee. It is NOT supposed to be that bitter. If I weren’t so hooked on caffeine and too pressed for time to walk across the street to buy coffee from some place other than you guys, I would stop drinking your coffee. It is burning a hole in my stomach. Thanks!
(Two stars for the food, third star for the people-​watching.)

The building is great but the food is just OK. The sushi is good though, it’s prepared right there. This is basically one of the cafeterias in campus. The food trucks across the street are cheaper and sometimes offer better options. Prices are tax free if you’re a student.

Given the context of Kendall Square dining options, the Forbes is pretty good. It’s still a glorified student cafeteria, but the entrees are good and hearty, if a little expensive. The sushi is made fresh and of decent quality. And the airy surroundings and big windows are certainly a big improvement over the food court up the street.

This café in the Stata center is a little pricey, particularly the Starbucks-​like coffeshop section. The main attraction is of course the building: Frank Gehry’s design is great fun to explore. The food here is actually good though, whether you get pizza or sushi or a sandwich. Get some food and go up to the 4^th floor veranda on a nice day — great place to spend a lunch hour.