Published Articles

Hopping out the Door

By Sharon Carpenter

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

AUDOBON- When visiting a chain restaurant, people can usually count on consistently. This particular IHOP in Audobon was a little different than most others I have visited.

The International House of Pancakes is a family-orientated comfortable chain restaurant. They are renown for mostly their pancakes and breakfast items, but they serve a wide variety of lunch and dinner items too. The items at IHOP are moderately priced, but the food is high quality.

I should have known how the meal was going to progress when I first entered the doors. Although there wasn’t any wait time on this particular Saturday afternoon, the cleanliness of the restaurant was at first glance a little on the messy side. The atmosphere of the restaurant was nonchalant and a comfortable setting, but maybe a little too comfortable. As my dining partner and I sat down, we were surrounded by families of all sizes. There were a couple people actually dining alone for this particular meal.

As we were seated at our table, I couldn’t help but get a bad feeling as my elbows stuck to the leftover syrup on the table from the previous people’s meal. The table was not cleaned and my dining partner was missing silverware.

The waitress took a while (about 15 minutes) to greet us and take our order. She did not know much about the contents of the menu and she had a negative attitude about wanting to wait on us.

We declined on any kind of appetizers as the meal portions were large enough for us. I ordered a Cinnamon Swirl French Toast platter, which included two eggs any style, sausage or bacon, and hash browns. (PRICE.) My dining partner ordered a Big Basic which included three eggs any style with either ham, bacon or sausage, and three buttermilk pancakes. My dining partner asked for a little zest with her meal and ordered chocolate chip pancakes instead of regular buttermilk pancakes.

Our food seemed to take forever, but I’m sure it was because we were starving. When the food finally arrived, my dining partner was immediately disappointed when they brought her chocolate pancakes instead of chocolate chip pancakes. When she asked for her order to be corrected, the waitress seemed confused to what chocolate chip pancakes were. Weren’t we at a pancake house?

As I dug into my plate with much excitement, I was immediately disappointed. My scrambled eggs were cold and my hash browns were mostly burned. The three sausage links I received were delicious though. The best part of my meal was the cinnamon swirl French toast. The cinnamon bun was drenched in a sugar frosting and cinnamon and brown sugar were sprinkled throughout the bun. The French toast was delectable and I couldn’t complain about the sausage.

The Big Basic’s scrambled eggs and bacon were cold as well. Once my dining partner was done eating she finally received her pancakes which were cooked correctly this time. The warm buttermilk pancakes had chocolate chips sprinkled throughout. They were delicious and well worth the wait. Speaking of wait, we hadn’t seen the waitress in about 20 minutes or so.

Overall, the service and atmosphere of the restaurant were terrible. The waitress was not knowledgeable of the menu, she wasn’t anywhere to be found, and her customer service skills were absolutely despicable. The food was decent; however the Cinnamon Swirl French Toast and chocolate chip pancakes were delicious and gave us some hope for the restaurant. It was not enough hope to make me ever want to go back to this particular IHOP again.

ABOUT THE RESTAURANT

DETAILS

Chain: International House of Pancakes, 110 Blackhorse Pike Audubon, NJ 08106-1950, (856) 310-1050. Other nearby locations at 285 Route 73 North W. Berlin, NJ 08091-2500, (856) 753-8404; 3 Snyder Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19148-2722; (215) 339-5095.

Atmosphere: Family-oriented. The setting is comfortable; however it is unclean.

Price: Moderately priced. A meal for two people including drinks and all sides comes out to be $21.24.

Portions: Portion size can be adjusted by the discretion of the eater. Since IHOP offers a lot of combination platters, each person that visits the restaurant will have a different amount of food to choose from.

Leftovers:

Leftovers would be small, and most people do not take home breakfast food.

Smoking:

No smoking

Overall: This particular IHOP did not fulfill the expectations of the chain. The food, atmosphere, and cleanliness of the restaurant was below average and very disappointing for people who are expecting a certain quality and experience at IHOP they usually receive from other chains.

Rating: 2.5/5

Published Articles

Solution to Assaults

By Sharon Carpenter

Thursday, October 4, 2007

GLASSBORO- The last thing students at Rowan University expected to hear when they returned to class after a fun-filled Labor Day weekend was news of their peers being robbed and sexually assaulted. These unfortunate events took place in the early hours of Saturday, September 1 at Beau Rivage Townhouses in Glassboro, NJ.

At 2:41 A.M. the Glassboro Police Department responded to a large fight and two unconscious people in Beau. Two of the subjects told officers that they were assaulted by five unknown males who punched and kicked them in the head and face. They also robbed them, taking their money, cell phones, and wallets. There was also a third victim that was hit in the face with a vodka bottle causing a severe cut and broken bones in the face. Only three out of the five suspects were caught and police are looking for the others.

Because the victims were all Rowan students, Rowan University and Glassboro responded immediately. The next morning, Rowan Pubic Safety, the Glassboro command staff, the president of Rowan University, and the two vice presidents of Rowan met together. After rigorous hours of discussion, they came up with a solution.

Glassboro Police Department will be sending two or three officers to team up with two or three officers from Rowan Public Safety. Together they form the party patrol. The party patrol will be going on evenings and weekends to check for noise, parties, and any suspicious behavior.

“We’ve had robberies and sexual assaults before, but this was different because it was the first weekend that freshmen were alone, “said Timothy Michener, Director of Public Safety.

“We’ve already issued 87 citations in the first 18 days. Last year in the first 18 days we issued 15. We are taking this seriously,” said Michener.

The Beau Rivage landlord is also taking the proper precautions to try and prevent this from happening again. In fact, Mike Williams, landlord of Beau and President of Homeowner Association, drove back from a vacation to meet with the Rowan and Glassboro police the next morning.

Beau Rivage pays Glassboro police overtime for providing extra security every weekend. Although it is tedious for them to pay extra money for them to patrol, Beau Rivage has found that providing additional officers on foot has seemed to be the most effective. This allows the officers to become more mobile and allows them to patrol areas within a closer range.

“We have hired Glassboro police for security every weekend. This gives us private security. We’re going to continue down the path we’re going,” said Williams.

Although there was a DWI check on Route 322 in Glassboro the same night, Rowan Public Safety said there wasn’t any correlation between the assaults and robberies and the police presence at the DWI.

“I was appalled, fearful for the students, and I felt horrible for the families of the students that were treated so badly,” said Joanne Damminger, Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Student Affairs.

Damminger claimed that there were several meetings set up amongst the Rowan administration to take immediate action. Their main concern was that harm caused to Rowan students was being caused off-campus and by non-students. The Division of Student Affairs is currently trying to make recommendations to President Farish about what should be done. In fact, the administration of Rowan University is planning a day-long retreat about alcohol abuse response. They will be focusing on what more to do, how to respond, and how to treat the students that have been harmed from the events.

Damminger felt that incidents like this could occur anywhere and at anytime, but they’ve never been a problem. She felt that it was different this time because of the number of students involved in the incidents. The particularly pleasant weather might have played a role in the incidents because of the amount of people that wanted to be outside together.

Students living in the nearby area are also taking proper precautions to protect themselves. Lauren Blose, a sophomore at Rowan University lives in the Beau Rivage townhouse complex. She didn’t think much of it when she returned to her apartment that night and saw the police at Beau. Police are usually patrolling the Beau area as it area is known for loud social events. She went to bed and figured it was the usual patrolling.

The next morning she checked the Owl Alert (the campus security email) and found out about the unfortunate events. After learning about the events she claims to have carried a can of Mace around with her the next night because she was fearful from the events the night before. She feels the police patrolling constantly are a step in the right direction towards a safer environment around campus.

“I’d rather get a ticket for drinking and have police constantly patrolling than get raped,” says Blose.

Tara Kalivas, a senior at Rowan University, lives in Campus Crossings the apartment complex right next to Beau Rivage. She claims she heard by word of mouth the next day and was surprised when she found out because she doesn’t remember this ever happening before since she’s lived there. Kalivas is concerned as to the way police are responding to the events. She feels that the police are concentrating too much on alcohol violations rather than the safety.

“Students should be educated about safety such as not walking alone. There should be more security people walking around and not only patrolling parties,” said Kalivas.

Aside from the extra patrolmen that Glassboro and Rowan are sending out, Rowan also has many precautions. Rowan has 47 blue light telephones for students to gain direct access to public safety. They also offer Rape Against Defense courses (12-hour self-defense courses) free of charge for women of all ages. Rowan Public Safety also offers an escort service free to all students at all hours of the night. The escort will take the student from where they are and return them to their final destination.

“Always believe that people by nature will rise to expectations, but what should be done is to have high reasonable expectations,” said Damminger.