Gallery and Gross Ice Cream Prices
Who doesn’t love Gallery? No matter what you are in the mood for, Gallery has got you covered.
It is located in the basement of a residence hall on GW’s campus whose name is Shenkman Hall to everyone at GW except for seniors who still call it by its older name, Ivory Tower (but this can be debated by students). The residence hall sits on the corner of G and 23rdstreets, NW, a location that attracts mostly students but also professionals leaving work on their way to the Foggy Bottom- GWU metro stop that is only two blocks away. The basement consists of a Gallery food place that serves French fries, mozzarella sticks, and anything else a college student might want at all hours of the day. There is also a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Chinese food restaurant called Teashi, and the Gallery Market, the final site for my fieldwork.
On Sunday afternoon around 6:30pm, I went downstairs to Gallery market to check out their ice cream selection. it is a small space that probably takes up the size of a large apartment. It sells chips, frozen foods, pasta, and basically anything the average college student might shop for in a grocery store. Although it is on GWorld, the only caveat is the price of the products. It is similar to FoBoGro in its expensive nature.
In Gallery Market, the ice cream is located at the back of the store, next to the other frozen food items like Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese, Lean Cuisine meals, and Pizza Bagels. There were only two brands of ice cream: Halo Top and Ben & Jerry’s, and the display was a little messy and empty. However, there were many different flavors of each, including two Ben & Jerry’s flavors I found pretty interesting such as the reduced fat “Chocolate Cookie EnlightenMint” and the “Salted Caramel Core”. These unique flavors definitely appeal to students in acknowledging the new healthy ice cream craze.
Also important to mention is how expensive the ice cream was! Each pint goes for $6.99, which I found pretty ridiculous. This is dollars more than a 1.5-quart size would cost at a regular food store. For a place catered to students actually located in the basement of a residence hall where GW students live, it is not very affordable. I wonder if they feel like they can raise prices because they accept GWorld cards as payment: sometimes GWorld money doesn’t feel like real money, so perhaps students are more inclined to spend it at a convenient location even though it is overpriced since they don’t have to use their own funds?
What I expected to see at Gallery Market in terms of their ice cream selection is exactly what I saw. I expected to see a limited amount of pints with some cool flavors. However, I did not expect to see such a high price for a small amount of ice cream. Not surprisingly, the people who looked like students who were shopping there did not go near the ice cream freezer. It is no longer cold enough to say that this may have been due to the weather, so I’m starting to think that people are turned off by the high cost it pays to enjoy some ice cream.
For the sake of the ice cream lover, let’s lower those prices! Ice cream for all and for all a good night.
- Marissa Kirshenbaum