By day, they are delis – but by night…

My favorite off-campus spot(s) are the delis! They are right across from Zable Stadium on the corner of Scotland Street – you can’t miss them if you are driving into the ‘Burg on Richmond Road.

There are three delis around the corner: The College Delly, Paul’s Deli (pictured on the left) and the Green Leafe Café. During the daytime, all serve a wide variety of classic American cuisine. The College and Paul’s have a huge menu containing every fast-food item (fries, onion rings, mozzarella sticks) or sandwich you can think of. You place your order and they call you up when it’s ready. The Green Leafe, however, is a sit-down restaurant with a menu of salads, wraps, burgers and more. They are great places to grab lunch if you have an hour to kill or if you want to give your visiting family members a sense of off-campus college dining (my first time eating at the Green Leafe was with my parents – “Mom, Dad… apparently this is the place to go if you are a student”)

But these delis are not popular solely because of their dining – they become a huge part of the nightlife for students after 8pm. They turn into bars (even though they do serve alcohol during the day), meaning the staff dim the lights and turn up the music. It gets so crowded in the Leafe, for example, there is always a short line to get in, especially on Sundays and Mondays for “Trivia Night” (they have rounds of trivia and the winning team gets a free tab) and “Mug Night” (large mugs can be filled at discounted prices). They do start carding students at 8pm, so if you aren’t 21 you’ll have to arrive a little earlier in order to hang out all night. I think the plastic mugs they sell at the Green Leafe sum up the delis best: “Good beer, Good food, Good people, Bad parking”.

– Mary Bonney ’10