With Life Alive Organic Cafe replacing Panera Bread, Bertucci’s closing and Tavern in the Square becoming Tavern Allston, the dining scene around Boston University has seen a lot of change in recent years.
Most of the changes have been good, said Amanda Scott, a first-year graduate student in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences who spent her undergraduate years at BU as well.
“I don’t think anything has gotten worse,” Scott said, “it’s just different.”
However, Scott does miss the rolls from Bertucci’s, the Kenmore Square Italian restaurant that closed in March, she said.
“Now that [Bertucci’s is] gone, it’s kind of hard because nothing has taken its place yet,” Scott said, “and I think it’s hard especially if you live in East Campus, that’s a big spot for people to go to.”
For students in West Campus, Life Alive is the among the latest in dining option changes. The vegetarian/vegan eatery can be found at 888 Commonwealth Ave. in the former location of Panera Bread, which closed due to financial issues in 2017.
Julianna Muise, a junior in the College of Communication, said she hopes Life Alive stays, as she finds the new restaurant’s service to be quick and convenient.
“It’s always busy in there,” Muise said, “but there’s also the online ordering option, which I use every single day after I go to the gym.”
Life Alive’s location placement by the Fitness and Recreation Center is a smart choice, Muise said. Life Alive advertises its focus on health, stating on its website that its food is “supplied, prepared and designed with the health and vitality of our bodies, communities, and earth foremost in our mind.”
The convenience of Life Alive makes Muise’s life easier, she said, even when it comes to smaller aspects of her life.
“I live in StuVi, so I have my own kitchen and I was going to get my own juicer, but it was just way too expensive, so I didn’t end up getting it,” Muise said, “but then when I saw that there was Life Alive, I was really excited because now I don’t have to juice my own juices.”
Vegetarian/vegan-friendly restaurants like Life Alive are becoming increasingly necessary as more people at BU choose to follow that diet, said Chandani Shah, a sophomore in the College of General Studies.
“There’s a lot of increasing vegetarians and pescatarians and even vegans throughout the campus that haven’t been able to feed themselves properly, considering that a lot of the campuses don’t even have kitchens for them to cook their own meals,” Shah said. “So it’s definitely a positive move towards being more accepting of people who don’t eat the stereotypical meat and chicken and things like that.”
Shah, a former vegetarian, said she hopes the presence of places like Life Alive will push BU to improve its vegetarian offerings.
“I don’t eat red meat, and I know that a lot of the options usually contain red meat,” Shah said. “I just started eating chicken recently because I found myself having to because there weren’t that many vegetarian options that I found that tasted good on campus.”
For students of drinking age, another big change is the rebranding of Tavern in the Square as Tavern Allston, accompanying a redecoration and menu updated to include more vegetarian and gluten-free options.
The old nickname of the former Tavern in the Square — TITS — will likely remain a running joke among BU students, Muise said, but she can understand why the Tavern team would want to rebrand.
“It was called TITS,” Muise said, “what do you think you’re going to get from that?”
One change to the dining scene Scott said she would support is encouraging students to visit the little-frequented eateries already present on Commonwealth Avenue.
“I think that a lot of students don’t take advantage of all of the restaurants built in, like right near Insomnia Cookies,” Scott said. “There’s all those like the pizzeria, and I don’t think many students go there, so I think it could be a good idea for BU to kind of partner with them and maybe get dining points somehow involved.”
But BU students shouldn’t feel restricted to the dining options near campus, Scott said.
“I love dining around BU,” Scott said, “but BU students should also get off campus and get outside the BU bubble and explore the city of Boston a little bit.”
Kiran Galani and Joel Lau contributed to the reporting of this article
Jennifer Small is a junior in the Boston University College of Communication, majoring in journalism and minoring in media science. She is one of the Co-Campus News Editors for Spring 2023.
