Most Depressing Places on Campus Volume I: Mark's Cafe

Welcome to UTB's newest weekly feature, Most Depressing Places on Campus! We'll highlight the plethora of spots on our glorious campus to hit up when you want to feel dark and soulless. 

Our premiere Most Depressing Place is a familiar one, the grand originator of every Quaker's Van Pelt coffee shits. Mark's Cafe is hella depressing. 

First, the Mark's aesthetic is like if a school bus crashed into a spaceship, resulting in massive loss of life. The inexplicably yellow chairs and paint on the floor. The metal ceiling and tables. The screeching cries for help from the espresso machine. A beleaguered Bon Appetit employee yelling, "YOU FORGOT YOUR CREAM CHEESE, SIR."

Its high traffic cannot be taken as a sign of its popularity, but is rather a sign of the level of desperation in its customers' lives. Next time you're on line at Mark's Cafe, try inventing a backstory for those unfortunate souls around you. The grad student eyeing those White and Wong cookies? Orphaned at age three. The sorority girl who emphasizes three times that the latte must be non-fat? Doesn't know she's dying of an incurable disease. Whatever it is, ultimately no happy path can lead a person to resorting to Mark's Cafe sushi for lunch. 

Mark, whoever you are, we're sorry if this is harsh. But your cafe is depressing. We don't blame you for hiding anonymously behind your first name. We'd do the same.