GMC Atrium Cafe

I’ve worked in both restaurants and hospitals for years, and I can tell you that this is singularly the worst hospital cafeteria I have ever eaten in. Basically, it’s a middle school cafeteria at 30x the price.
Let’s start with the location. The Atrium is a huge, open space with plenty of seating and nice décor. The Café is bright, with various stations serving hot entrées and sides, a deli counter, salad bar, hot sandwiches, deserts, soups, pizza, an «international» section serving single dishes individually prepared, and even a sushi station. With that kind of variety, there has to be something for everyone, right? Nope.
The entrée station is perhaps the only decent fare in the place. That is, if stuffed chicken breast caked in paprika is your jam. Soggy steamed vegetables sweat in the their steam trays, while the mashed potatoes dry out in the open air.
Which brings me to the short order station. They do not have a fryer. So your «French fries», onion rings and chicken fingers are baked in a convection oven. Not a huge deal, but no one bothers to flip or shuffle them around, every order is simultaneously burnt and undercooked. The burgers are cooked at 9am, kept in a holding oven in a sheet pan half soaking in their own grease, leaving them dried out and greasy at the same time. They are made up as needed and left under a heater, so the bread is stale and more akin to a large cracker than a bun.
I’ve surmised that the hot sandwiches are not made with bread, but rather a kitchen sponge rolled in broken glass. Perhaps it’s a means of drumming up business for the oral surgery clinic.
The pizza looks decent (when there is any), and is about par for what you’d expect from a hospital cafeteria. However, it sits out in the open, and is often cold, and the employees working there refuse to heat it up in the oven that is 4 FEET AWAY.
The sushi is actually decent, but $ 7 – 9 for not the freshest raw seafood is a bit high in my opinion.
The «International Expo» is a crapshoot, it closes down at 2pm, but the portions are small and you could do better with a Marie Calendar frozen meal.
The sandwich station is manned by people who have never eaten a decent sandwich in their lives. Rule #1 in making a delicious looking sandwich, DO NOT lay each piece of meat flat upon the next like you are counting out dollar bills. Crumple it up so it gives the sandwich some fullness. The «artisan» bread is mealy and dry, but not horrible.
The salad bar is a beacon of hope. You can choose from fresh greens or lettuce, pick your toppings, including grilled chicken, ham, turkey, tuna, chicken salad, fresh fruits and many different dressings. They have wraps and bread available if you want to make your own. One caveat however. The salad bar, and everything else that gets weighed is EXPENSIVE. $ 0.42/oz for salad, wraps/​sandwiches, fresh fruit, yogurt, ice cream, and bulk candy. If you aren’t careful, you can easily spend $ 12 – 15 on a mediocre salad or more. My tip: limit the heavy wet ingredients and put your dressing on the side.
The coffee is pricey, and the coffee station is small, cramped, and constantly dirty and perpetually out of one ingredient, be it plain creamer, decaf coffee, sweet and lo, whatever. They do allow you a refill using an outside cup (any one that doesn’t come from them, regardless of size) for $ 0.85. So there’s that.
All in all, it’s a rout. Highway robbery perpetuated against a captive market. The staff is unhelpful, the prices are ridiculous, the food is mediocre at best, and even the condiments are watery and questionable. This place desperately needs some kind of management to actually look at it from a customers POV and make the appropriate changes. If it weren’t in the hospital, with a admittedly beautiful space, it would have closed its doors days after opening. Save your money and bring food, or hit up Wendy’s, Burger King, or even Weis’ deli shop.
Honestly, Geisinger should be ashamed.