Feb. 5, 2016 the Racquette Editor-in-Chief
Marcus Wolf Publisher
Marcus Wolf Managing Editor
Shawntel Courtney Advisor
Opinion & Editorial
Kirsten Meehan Op/Ed Editor
Daniel Cretaro Staff Writer
Shawntel Courtney A&E Editor
Jay Petrequin College Life Editor
Mark Guido Comics Editor
Michelle Trumpet Sports Editor
Katie Wilson Creative Writing Editor
Grace Milusich
Community Page Editor
Michelan Le’Monier Financial Advisor
Imani Snowden Stephen Doyle III Public Relations
Jean-Michael Huallanca Liana Ngai Oyiwodu Eche Staff Writers
Angel Lopez Rebecca Augustine Forest Ashley Kevin Agyakwa Sean Pent Fallon Ellen Ricks Olivia Broersma Hana Moskowitz Daniel Cretaro Contributing Writers
Dr. Jennifer Mitchell DIAC Staff Ellen Nesbitt Dan Bronson Staff Photographers
Alexis Leigh Orlopp Katie Daloia Copyeditors
Forest Ashley Kevin Agyakwa Sean Pent Fallon Kevin Fitzpatrick Comic Artists
Anthony Urda Melissa Downing
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racquette@potsdam.edu The office of the Racquette is located in Room 118 of the Barrington Student Union on the SUNY Potsdam campus. The Racquette is partially funded by the Student Goverment Association of SUNY Potsdam. A distribution of 1,500 copies is printed by Newspapers of Northern New York located in Massena, New York.
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Two Different Waitresses, Two Stars for Between The Buns
Dr. Susan Novak News Editor
the Racquette
Compared to some place like New York City, it’s hard to find some culinary variety in this town. Here at SUNY Potsdam, our food has been voted number one in the SUNY system, according to the SUNY Potsdam website, but sometimes you want to leave campus to get something different to eat. That’s when this town starts to fall apart, at least when it comes to food. So it was with an empty stomach that I went out to the local burger place, Between the Buns, to try and take away my hunger for all things beef. I had heard some very good things about Between the Buns, often called BTB. I had heard that it was a place with great food, a fun atmosphere and quality service. These are the different things that I was looking for. First, I was looking for was good food. I’m not going to be like someone on some blog that bemoans a place just because they overcooked a burger, but there is a standard. Second, I was looking for quality service. Again, I don’t need it to be perfect, just kind and friendly and able to handle crowds when it is busy. The third thing was cleanliness. The fourth how expensive it was. Finally, I was looking to see if they took Bear —spoiler alert: they do! It should be stated that I went in there during the swing shift because I didn’t want to deal with a crowd of people. The swing shift is a time when restaurants don’t normally have a lot of things made already, because it is in between lunch and dinner. The food they do have is normally being prepped for
Between the Buns’ kitchen hours are 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The bar stays open as long as the are busy.
the dinner crowd. I went there with someone who wasn’t very hungry and because I wanted to make sure that I had a good cross-section of their menu, I ordered for both of us. We started with the “Waffle Sweet Potato Fries” and an order of poutine with bacon bits and pork. The gravy on top of the poutine was a little too salty, and looked like it came from a jar, which is fine for the most part. The pork went nicely with the gravy, and that was one of my favorites of the night. The “Waffle Sweet Potato Fries” with a bourbon and bacon aioli were really good. The aioli was the right consistency for the waffle fries, unlike the aioli that goes with the “Haystack Onions,” which is too thick for the thin onion slices. For me, the main problem with the actual food was the wings. I ordered some boneless wings, but
Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, I want you to think of anywhere in America where you can be charged with doing something horribly wrong. Then imagine that you cannot know or face your accusers, or be represented by a lawyer at a hearing, even though the outcome will have a lasting impact on your life. You know where there is happening? SUNY Potsdam. My daughter was president of the National Honor Society. She was falsely accused, as were four of her sorority sisters, by unnamed accusers of attempting to enlist future sisters during a time when their sorority was unrecognized. All four denied these false charges, as well as all five of the supposed ghost pledges. The SUNY Potsdam staff refused to believe nine young women! This happened two weeks before
graduation and during finals! They had their diplomas and transcripts withheld, despite their excellent academic achievements! They were forced to accept a punishment in order to graduate. The punishment included 100 hours of community service to be completed in three months. They also had to read a book about a girl who lied, “I am that Girl,” write a five-page essay on the book, plus write a lesson plan based on the book. SUNY Potsdam is now trying to Ban Alpha Delta Kappa Sorority, which has existed for 87 years! Shame on you SUNY Potsdam! As Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Andrew J Tarantino
Katie Daloia
BTB did not have a good selection of wing sauces. I guess that would be fine if you like mild, medium, hot, or teriyaki sauce; however, I do not really like any of those sauces. I didn’t want to hold it against them, so I tried the teriyaki sauce. They were out of it. Again, all of this is fine for the time that I was in there, but it would be annoying if I had my heart set on it. When the wings came out they were a little overcooked, but still edible. The medium sauce on them was pretty good. My friend ordered the “Peanut Butter Burger” with a veggie patty. It’s a burger with peanut butter on it. That’s it. No lettuce or anything else, just peanut butter. She liked it, but I was unable to try it myself because I was full by the time I finished my burger. I got the “Surf and Turf” burger. BTB can put anything they want on top of the
burger, but that won’t change the fact that it was bland. Sauces and toppings are meant to bring out the flavor of good food, but when the food isn’t good to begin with, then it is just covering up laziness. That’s what the burger itself — without any of the toppings or sauce — tasted like: lazy. This leads me to the service. I was lucky enough to have two different waitresses. That was because the first waitress left right at the end of her shift, and gave us to the new waitress. That isn’t something that has happened to me before, and I hope that it never happens again. The first waitress was kind and attentive. The second waitress looked like she just wanted to go home. In the end, it was hard to justify giving a tip to someone who literally just brought me the main course and a soda, while the other one who had left did all of the heavy lifting. The place was very clean, and that made me really happy. There are places in town that aren’t very clean, but BTB was kind enough to care about how they looked. What they don’t care about is the cost of the food. They claim to use the best ingredients, but that just doesn’t add up when looking at the cost of the place compared to what I ate. They took Bear, which was a plus, but it still was seventy dollars when factoring in the tip. That isn’t a very good deal for some place in a college town. Overall, I would give Between the Buns two out of five stars. I guess it could be good for a place to go to watch a game and have a few beers, or something like that. It is too over-priced for for a college town, and I really didn’t like that I had two different waitresses.