Most college students know the struggle of trying to find a good meal on a budget. With limited funds, most students find their favorite spots near campus where someone can grab a quick, cheap bite to eat at a restaurant with a good vibe. However, this is not the case in my latest dining experience.

As soon as I walked into the Senate Coney Island of Taylor, Michigan I had a bad feeling. My dining companion and I simply exchanged puzzled looks as we looked around the restaurant to find two fellow diners, but not a single employee in sight. We followed the instructions of the “Please seat yourself” sign and proceeded to one of the many uncleaned booths where we began to wait for what seemed like an eternity to be greeted by a waitress. On a positive note, any college student who has lived in a dorm or by themselves for the first time would be proud of their cleaning habits when compared to this restaurant. Although, this prolonged wait gave me time to reflect on the great wonders of the world, “How did the Egyptians build pyramids or the Chinese the Great Wall? When is my research paper due?” During our wait, we overheard two waitresses fighting over which one should wait on us, apparently neither wanted to work, but somebody had to bear the burden.

Finally, after more than ten minutes, our waitress appeared out of nowhere to give us greasy menus and take our drink order. While we waited for our waitress to return after another ten minutes for our food order, we discovered that my friend’s Pepsi and my Sierra Mist tasted almost exactly the same, just like Cola Syrup.

After our waitress corrected her mistake of bringing our food to the wrong customers, here it came, my bacon cheeseburger and chili fries and my friend’s chicken strips and cheese sticks. By this point, we were already starving from our wait so this food began to look very good and even tasted good at first, but after a few bites something miraculous happened. The food lost all of it’s flavor. Her chicken strips were dried out and my burger had only one overpowering flavor of what seemed like half a pound of onion. The chili fries had no flavor, they were just soggy fries covered in brown sauce. The only thing that my friend wanted to help get her dried chicken strips down, was another cola syrup drink. It took about ten minutes for the waitress to come out from the kitchen to realize that my friend was completely out of something to drink. By the time that the waitress filled up her drink, we were definitely ready to go. The staff had an amazing way of making customers feel overly welcome, the other waitress, mind you there are only two waitresses in the building, was giving dirty looks to my friend.

All in all, we left very happy...to be out of there. It was not the best dining experience, it was dirty and the food didn’t taste the best, but at least it was cheap and we got out of there without feeling sick. Happy to be going home, we sped away down Ecorse Road when the feeling of death sunk into the pits of our stomachs. I am writing this article right after eating at the Senate Coney Island, with the experience still fresh in my mind so I am not sure how long the stomach ache will last, but I hope it will go away soon. Overall, if you are looking for a dining disaster, Senate Coney Island might be the place for you, but if you are a little more reserved in your dining choices, you may want to think again.