Best Lunch On Styrofoam

By Neil Schloesser
Contributing Writer

I parked on the north side of the building in the visitors’ section and took my first left.  I was hurrying towards my lunch. I followed the smell and the signs down a gray carpeted hallway. A young man at a cash register greeted me. I’d ordered my food online the night before. It was waiting for me when I arrived.
 
“All we have is diet pop. This is a public school,” he said when I inquired about my drink choices. I winced and chose Diet Pepsi, then paid $5.50 for my lunch. I asked if I could sit down so that I could wolf my meal down and get back to work on time.
“Sit at any bused table,” he said. “Okay,” I said to the young man, for he was definitely young and just barely a man.

I sat and opened my Styrofoam container. My food sat there, helpless in the face of my hunger. My ears soaked up the sounds of youth between hurriedly shoveled mouthfuls of food. My eyes roamed while my jaws masticated the food. 
The day’s menu was projected against one wall. Another wall had a student-drawn mural of a café with a blue sky.

The tables were covered in dark tablecloths; disposable silverware was rolled in matching napkins. The students were going for formal, proper, professional, but with kids occasionally coming and going to class the feeling was loose and relaxed.
I saw someone I knew. Anxiety prickled my chest and I felt myself getting pulled inward. I no longer fought. I was slowly getting stuck in my head. I no longer cared.
She pulled me out but like a rubberband. I snapped back into place when she left.

The restaurant offers two menus, each one with an entrée, dessert, and soup.  Presumably each menu is designed by two different classes. This would explain why each menu online had a different font. Both menus are available and can be mixed and matched.

I ate my fried chicken. I ate my alfredo and linguine. I ate my brownie. It was simple, cheap, and filling. It was what I wanted, food with flavor, not too much, not too little, not too polished, and not to sloppy. It was just right.

The food was good, relatively speaking. It was and looked like a home-cooked meal, but that is fine because the chefs are students who are learning how to cook and run a restaurant. There is a rawness to the style that is missing when one visits a chain and everything is polished to an unreal sheen. This style is appealing and that’s what the Bruin Lunchbox offers, a real lunch stripped of pretensions at a low price.

Coupled with an atmosphere of learning, community, and youth, Fargo South has got a restaurant like no other in the area. I checked my watch. I was late and like the white rabbit, I hurried away.
 
The restaurant is open to students and the general public but only on select Thursdays and Fridays between 10:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Check the website for dates as well as menu options. Limited delivery is available.

Go to the South High website and under the heading of “Bruin Links,” click on “Bruin Lunchbox.” http://tiny.cc/BruinLunchbox

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

If You Go

What: Bruin Lunchbox
Where: 1840 15th Ave S
When: Check website
Info: 701.446.2000