Editor’s Note: All students quoted in this article are of legal drinking age. Do you prefer your margaritas frozen or on the rocks? Is your favorite flavor the original lime, or an option like peach, watermelon, or mango? These are the questions I asked the crowded tables at Lupitas Mexican Restaurant, a downtown Oberlin joint known for its lacquered booth murals, reasonably priced enchilada platters, and, most of all, Marg Night. A staple among College students, Marg Nights are every Tuesday ...

One evening at Stevenson Dining Hall, we entered the bustling buffet area with our newly-found friends. The desserts had been topped up seconds before, after a wave of sugar-starved students had eaten everything in sight, and we knew we had to taste everything. But, as young adults refining our taste palettes, we decided it would be unreasonable to stomach an entire dessert bar alone.  So instead, we decided to split the dessert bar. The result was glorious: four diverse delights piled high onto one modest plate. Overall, the selections exceeded our expectations, considering we were eating in a college dining hall.  The first sample, custard pie, was arguably the worst of the bunch based solely on texture. Whi...

An Indian and a Pakistani walked along West College Street last Thursday, terrified that within the next few hours we would hear terrible news regarding escalating military tension from our South Asian borders. We decided the best way to deal with this fear was to share a meal at Catrina’s Tacos y Margaritas — Oberlin’s new Mexican restaurant.  The restaurant was full that night, though it’s hard to tell whether the foot traffic was due to the novelty of a new restaurant downtown or ge...

There’s something just shy of presumptuousness in naming a brand new restaurant The Corner Joint — call it confidence, or maybe even swagger. “The corner joint” is a nickname that, at least in my mind, is reserved for the mom-and-pop shops, restaurants that have existed and persisted through good times and bad, bending but never breaking under pressure. The designation is earned through a combination of good food, good service, and a friendly, personable atmosphere over years of memories shared by a customer base that keeps coming back, the kind of reputation that causes locals to tell folks passing through town to stop by the corner joint. It’s probably fair to say that such a future is what many new resta...