The US is a big place. Those exist in the US too, but MIT is in an area surrounded my software companies and pharmaceuticals. Not a lot of cheap options.
I used to work near MIT. At least several years ago, there were surprisingly few places to buy a decent meal near campus. (By surprising, I mean because there were also numerous businesses in that neighborhood with lots of well-paid employees.)
The area also has/had a small number of food trucks at lunchtime (only) IIRC.
Yeah, I worked near MIT from 2008 to 2012. It's almost a completely different place now. There weren't a ton of options back then, you had the MIT foodcourt, Rebecca's cafe, a sandwich place that was also a convenient store above a dry cleaner, and maybe Sebastians, but at least they weren't super expensive.
It doesn't even seem like the lunch options are better today, just more expensive. And dinner options, forget about it, way too expensive. We used to go to Tommy Doyles after playing corporate softball, and at least you could get a cheap burger.
Yeah, I've been to many of those places, also Chipotle quite a bit.
One thing I disliked about grabbing lunch in the area was that it mostly seemed really expensive or unhealthful.
I'm about average (I think) in terms of how healthful of a diet I try to have. But around Kendal Square it was hard to avoid crazy amounts of grease and salt in most of the meals. Okay for once in a while, but not every day.
