College speaks to millennial students with ’90s themed night

Goodbye Laverne & Shirley; hello Salt-N-Pepa. Declaring 1950s diner theme nights officially dead, Boston University (BU) Dining Services broke tradition last week with Nirvana blasting and bagel pizzas at the ready. 

“The typical ’50s diner night that every cafeteria on a college campus holds is over,” says Robert Flynn, new media coordinator with BU Dining, Aramark. “We didn’t expect ’90s night to be such a big hit, but it was.”

Students were totally pumped about the throwback event, a partnership between the dining department and Spoon University, a student-run organization that has chapters on campuses across the country and uses social media to promote food. 

“I genuinely enjoy that 90s night at West Dining Hall is a thing,” tweeted @marisa_Ingemi who, along with a large part of the campus population, has a lot of happy childhood memories of being a carefree kid in the last decade of last century. 

Food was an ode to the after-school treats of a ’90s childhood. Along with the most popular item, school snack pizza bagels, other nostalgic eats included Dunkaroo cookies with funfetti dip, Fruit Roll-Ups (ahh the days of so much processed food) and mac ‘n cheese topped with sliced hot dog.

The ’90s soundtrack included Spice Girls, Hanson, Britney Spears, Smash Mouth, Jessica Simpson, Ricky Martin and Mariah Carey. As @hrh_victoria commented on Spoon University’s Instagram pic, “The best event evaaaaa.”