Does your office have a canteen?

[Nrwwtoan]

If it does, is the food any good?

No we only have kitchen where we have microwaves etc.

I used to work in the Public Service and we did have a canteen. The food there was normally quite good, There were the usual processed stuff but there were always one or two nice hotdishes. Also some good salads.

No.

Many years ago when I was at uni I worked in an intercon hotel there was a canteen and the food was amazing, and free.

yes it has a coffee shop and canteen

it seems very popular although for some reason they have gone over to a single brand of crisps and they arent very nice

coffee is nice and i do love the sandwiches in the canteen, you can pick the bread and the filling

prices are ok but the chocolate bars are now £1.20 😩

No, we have a kitchen and a £12 budget (per day) to spend on Deliveroo.

Years ago i worked at HM Treasury and we had a canteen there. Chefs in white hats and aprons etc, cooking breakfast / eggs to order. was amazing food

I used to work in a place with a heavily subsidised canteen, pudding was 38p

and dh had a free canteen so we our main meal at lunch and just had a sandwich for tea, freed up our evenings which was awesome

I’ve never had a canteen in any of my jobs.

However husband is in the military so he has a mess, food is subsidised I think and very cheap. I’ve been a few times, it’s ok during the week and pretty good when they do events

No, but I’ll be wistful about one I worked in about 15 years ago. Friday was ‘Fry up day’. 7 items for about £2, all the food was fantastic. I put on a stone in that job. Also had a free bus to the office and a gym (which perhaps I should have used).

We get a free lunch for which I'm very grateful for.

Free food people.... Do you work in technology?

My office doesn't so most people bring food from home as there's nothing available in walking distance. I also visit a lot of client sites for work so have experience of a range of staff canteens, which are a lot less common than they used to be.

The quality of food varies from bloody awful (generally anything run by the big corporate facilities providers) to excellent (a pharmaceutical company and an oil refinery, the latter was also free and I was told that many people had all their meals there as they worked 4 days of rotating 12 hour shifts and would have a meal on arrival, a meal half way through their shift and a meal before they went home).

Cost varied between free/extremely cheap (a canned food manufacturer served their own products and meals like soup or beans on toast were literally pennies) and similar prices to external outlets like McDonalds/Pret so not cheap and adds up over time.

Ours was the local food truck that arrived each morning but we had to pay for it

Yes canteen. Things like sandwiches okay,cooked food is mostly chips peas and pie/burger/ whatever other thing they have decided for today. (Fish in Fridays.) We also have fridges and microwaves.

Yes . Food is quite good although the odd dish that isn't that great. They do a salad bar every day and then do different options each day for hot food. Prices are prob cheaper than some of the places near by but still quite pricey.

Yes, and it’s heavily subsidised and with a focus on healthy eating most of the time.

Breakfast options are usually porridge, breads/toaat, yogurt, fruit salad, granola, poached eggs, sausages, hasbrowns, scrambled egg, bacon.

Lunch is a full salad and sandwich bar, soup, then usually a choice of three mains (one vegan) with about three sides.

Chips just on a Friday, and no dessert options but they sell chocolate, crisps, cereal bars etc.

Food can be very hit or miss. It’s outsourced so you’re at the mercy of the catering company to keep a good chef.

We used to, then we moved offices. We actually moved into the space that had been canteen. The other tenants hate us for this!

One of our other regional offices is on a kind of campus, and has a canteen , although they stop serving lunch at 12.30pm and I always miss it!

No, we used to pre covid, even had a trolly service for sandwiches etc, food was fab, we also had a kitchen to make our own hot drinks and with microwave and toaster.
After covid office canteen was never reopened and office has recently been sold and we are WFH and have small office where we can book a desk if we need to, it has a small kitchen with a kettle, miss our canteen!

Legal. Mind you, first job where I've ever had a free lunch everyday so not normal.

Not even somewhere to sit and eat without getting oil on my clothes. I stay in my office where I’ve got a fridge, kettle, toaster and microwave

I worked at a very well known food chain HQ - amazing food for free - both unhealthy and healthy kind. It was shocking to have to pay for lunch after I quit.

Yes, a huge, heavily subsidised canteen. With a solid bar, a wok station, sandwiches and wraps station, and then the general Carvery lunch station.
All tea and coffee, stilland sparkling water is free.
We also have a coffee shop where the ‘fancy’coffees are approximately €1 to €1.50.

I work in pharma.

that should be salad bar not solid bar 🤣

No, desk capacity of about 110 in our part of the office but that's half of a floor of 7 floors. We're city centre though so no end of food outlets on the doorstep and we have a big sit-in kitchen with microwaves.
The Client office has a canteen and does really good food.

Yes and outside London so the campus is designed to encourage people to want to visit.

Range of waitress service and canteen style offerings, from the usual carb fest to salad bar which is far better for variety and price than it would be possible to replicate at home on a single family scale.

Brilliant coffee outlets, I'm sitting in one as we speak, for my usual post lunch coffee

These are all the things that the school career advisor never mention but that make such a difference to life and wellbeing.

Yea, tech. Insane and after a life in retail/logistics and not taken for granted at all.

I'm mainly WFH and get a Deliveroo 'allowance' which covers 3x lunches a week (and evenings if I work them, which is handy because it's a US company and there are often calls!)

I'm officially WFH, but meet up with colleagues in a 'shared workspace' in London every couple of weeks - we expense coffees/lunches etc.

Best is when flying to the US offices - chef on-site, delicious very organic/fresh foods, full kitchen. Encourages me to work harder so we can buy an office here faster 😂

DH works in tech and has a free canteen with restaurant-quality food and lots of variety - a meat & veg option, veggie option, pizza & pasta, soups, noodles, salad bar, wraps, cakes, yoghurt, fruit, flavoured waters, coffees and hot chocolate. They can invite guests for lunch so I take the dcs to visit him once every school holiday. The food is great although it can be a bit fussy for the kids, eg the veg can be roasted with lots of seasoning, or the pizzas have white sauce instead of tomato sauce.

DH has breakfast and lunch there, and goes into the office Mon-Fri, though he could wfh 2 days (we live a 10 min bike ride away).