Why did they ever stop serving those? I currently teach in the same elementary school that I attended. My only disappointment has been the lack of fiestada pizza!
Okay you guys are lucky. We had some sort of meat product with something resembling beans and something resembling a vegetable. We did have the chocolate milk too. All for $1.40.
#
Until high school, then we had pizza, fries, meatballs, chicken sandwiches, etc. Although I do remember a cafeteria worker once yelling at me because I refused to change my order from French fries to "freedom fries."
https://preview.redd.it/l6jb0ws1jl2d1.jpeg?width=886&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eebc648055dbfccdb6a3e1123073ac37bb998b78
I’ve only have seen these in school.
This might sound weird but on the unfortunate times our family has had to be at the hospital either for a relative or myself included, I always looked forward to the hospital food(cafeteria food) 😂🤦🏻♂️
Holy smokes! I’d forgotten these guys. These were a quarter in our lunchroom and break rooms! A half frozen grape juice after recess was one of life’s greatest pleasures.
I worked at Taco Bell back in the day and the taco salad bowl was just a deep fried tortilla we had a metal device not sure what it's called that pushed in the bottom and the sides out to make the shape when we deep fried it. Hope that was somewhat helpful.
Chat GPT4o says that Schwans Tonys pizza was the main distributor of pizza to schools in the 90s.
https://www.foodservicedirect.com/schwans-tonys-smart-thin-crust-whole-grain-cheese-pepperoni-pizza-4-48-ounce-96-per-case-191481.html?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmMayBhDuARIsAM9HM8fopvADUENnXlKEZXAa8fQ6jFH3YFwUHEqFqWJRGu_jSI80e-DRZCkaAvdrEALw_wcB
It's not the same without corn.
Why was this pizza ALWAYS served with corn? Does corn have some magical vitamins that make up for the nutritional void of the pizza?
We had the cartons at first but then they transitioned to these industrial looking clear square bags that you had to stab with a straw like Capri Sun. It was weird. No matter how cold the bag was, the milk was always somehow warm once it made it through the straw and into your mouth. The only part about them that I liked was that you could press your fingers into the bag and stretch the material to make it resemble a cow udder. Good times.
School is over for the summer but find a fifth grader to smuggle them out. Kids like cash. I tried candy and soda but they demanded a buck a carton. At that point I agreed just because I didn’t want to get reported trying to bribe children with candy. They’d never believe I was after that sweet sweet elementary milk.
We had these little yellow burritos that were kind of crunchy and had a slightly spicy beef and bean filling. I would eat five of those right now if I could find a place that replicates it.
Oooh! I was just waxing poetic about something similar. Ours were basically chimichangas…honestly probably one of those cheap frozen burritos, but deep fried if I remember correctly. They were called “crispitos” at my school. They were sooo good!!
They were called "crispitos" at my school in Indianapolis years and years ago and I still think about them often. Loved those things. I actually would go to school lunches (pre covid) with my children on crispitos lunch days. So good!!
Yes! In middle school we got a salad bar they'd bring out once a week, and it came with one of those burritos. That was my favorite day of the week because I could get more food than what I got in the line. I couldn't believe I got as much salad as I wanted *and* one of those burritos. Felt like gaming the system.
If anyone in Texas sees this and also liked those burritos, sometimes HEB has them as grab-and-go food. I had one last week. Still love them. I add a bit of Taco Bell Diablo sauce now.
Loved chili day as it came with a cinnamon roll. You could buy a second one or try and beg and barter for someone’s. There was a really weird kid who was known to not want their cinnamon roll and they became the most popular kid around lunch time.
Do you guys remember in elementary school when they would print out the colored monthly calendar that had that months lunch menu on it? I would hang it on the fridge and look at it all the time and get excited for what was for lunch. It had little cartoon drawings on it. It was in the 80’s.
Yes, I loved it even though my mom made me bring healthy lunch from home. I still would keep the calendar and look at what was coming. Sometimes I could convince my mom to let me buy a lunch on pizza pocket day.
Yeah! And you would plan out what days you were bringing stuff from home a month in advance because some meals were UNACCEPTABLE and your parents needed to put in the right amount for your lunch account
They serve this turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes with the Hawaiian roll kind of like bun fruit it vary from orange slices apple slices banana to this day I would love to try that turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes and it was nothing like a Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes it was a different recipe here in Arizona don't know if anybody else has experienced this little bit of Heaven from childhood
Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad with vinagrette, slice of Italian bread with butter, milk, canned peaches. Also that open face hot turkey sandwich you got the day before Thanksgiving and winter break, they usually made a real desert for that one like apple crumble. Sometimes we got grilled cheese and tomato soup, but not often enough.
Orange County NY mid 80s-90s. We had our fair share of slop- frozen nasty burgers, hot dogs, tacos, chicken nuggets, bog standard rectangle pizza every Friday-but at least in elementary school and middle school they cooked real food about 50% of the time. The formula seemed to be main dish, frozen vegetable or salad, fruit cup, milk.
I loved the burger we got. And the cheapo pickles. I got in trouble in the fourth grade for having a burger made mostly of pickles, one of the lunch aides was scolding me “you will eat all of those pickles” I just laughed and I was like why did you think I put 37 pickles on here? Mmmm I can still taste them to this day.
We had á La carte in middle/high school and I got some of the most unhealthiest combinations imaginable. I remember getting French fries and mozzarella sticks with a big side bowl of nacho cheese to dunk them in.
Same there were some kids at my school who had "Italian dunkers" (aka garlic cheesebread with marinara dipping sauce for those who called it something else) most days due to the A la Carte line. Lol kids might not deserve choices if that's the choice they're going to make every single day.
When I was in middle school (89-91) everyday they had a regular meal and pizza and fries. I miss that metabolism, because I only ever ate the pizza and fries everyday!!
Lol, I'm sure they were. And they were cool, not hypocrites that narc you out like my English teacher that would show up to class reeking of menthol cigarettes & bust the smokers in the bathroom across from her class.
We had these things called crispitos that were always the most popular. Buy extra on those days.
Chicken patties were good, too, when they actually used real meat and not the pink slime shit.
My highschool used to have these fucking bomb ass bagels. The outsides were crispy, the insides were stretchy and fluffy. They didn't need to be toasted, they were almost like a big french bread dinner roll. I don't know if they were particular to my school, but I have never found another bagel like them, and I continue to be heartbroken.
For the stuff I think everyone got, I miss cafeteria chicken nuggets. No other chicken nuggets are like the ones in the school cafeteria.
Pizza Fridays! Even though the pizza they served in elementary school was terrible, I loved it just the same. I thought I was living like as king when I got to middle school and they actually ordered out to Domino's. Which was also the worst of the pizza chains. BUT IT WAS STILL COOL!
There is a pizza shop in my town that sells fiestadas. They are exactly like the school lunch ones and I love it. Fiestada day was always double lunch day. When my swim team was doing double practices I could put down 4 of them no problem.
Edit: On chicken nugget day me and my buddy would skip class and hit up the cafeteria right as the last lunch period ended and they would pile all the left-over nuggets on our plates. We called it the "pothead platter."
Ok. This may sound weird, but when I was a little kid in Escambia County Florida, the schools served fried chicken breast once a week. They were small, but they were seriously delicious. Everyone got excited on chicken day. By the time I was in highschool they didn't serve it anymore, but I still remember how good it was.
The Montebello school district used to serve an empanada that I've never been able to find anywhere else. It was the best beef-with-cheese-sauce empanada I've ever had. To this day - DECADES LATER - I have a Pavlovian reaction whenever I think about it.
🧉🦄
If you have a Save A Lot near you, chances are they have the same pizzas. I used to get them occasionally just for the little trip down memory lane.
But to answer your question, my high school cafeteria would sometimes make homemade calzones. People would legit run to lunch to be sure to get one before they ran out.
Arby's.
Not even joking, not once in my life did I eat school cafeteria food. I took my lunch in elementary school. Our middle and high schools served Arby's, Pizza Hut, and KFC, plus nachos. You could go into the cafeteria to eat but anyone with a couple bucks chose the "Commons Area" which had the above options. We also had a bunch of vending machines for snacks and sodas.
What's weird to me is this is a really low income area so I'm surprised it was lucrative enough for the fast food places to haul food over every day.
Pizza burgers, cream chicken over mashed potatoes, turkey and mashed potatoes. We lived in a semi rural area for my elementary school, class sizes was smaller and almost everything was made from scratch. In fifth grade, you could work in the kitchen helping the ladies and wash the dishes for a free meal.
My school had the best salad bar, always daily yogurt from Yoplait- the factory was in town- and I’d come to school early for the breakfast pizza. The regular pizza and Mexican pizza were good, too. Really, most lunches were pretty good. You could also get sandwiches if you didn’t like the main entree. The Turkey and lettuce on a hamburger bun would sometimes hit just right!
I was always so jealous of kids who went to school with hot lunch. We had to pack our lunches until High School. Jamaican Beef Patties were my fav in high school.
I definitely didn't mind the square pizzas but our school had Godfather's personal pan pizzas that were pretty good too. And I also loved the simple ham & swiss sandwiches.
Pizza every Friday. We also had fiesta sticks that we’d dip in sour cream and salsa.
What I did not enjoy was the Salisbury steaks that looked like they had grilled tire tracks on them. They were so bad.
The fake pizza things on the right…I always wanted to eat cause it’s like pizza, but would give me a headache every time… I was like 7? But religiously headache…. Onetime in the lunch line I was walking and pushing my fingernails along concrete wall… I came across a paint chip, wooo right under fingernail that sucked
The pizza at my school tasted like Playdoh, and I hated the milk.
The only time I enjoyed lunch was when they gave us breakfast. That facon bacon was absolutely delicious.
In highschool every so often we would be served a veal parm sandwich on a 5" round bun. The patty was slightly larger than the bun, and smothered in marinara and mozzarella. I loved it then, but wonder what my perception would be today.
Nacho boat day! A huge tortilla… in the shape of a bowl… filled with hot, melted cheese or salsa…. Or BOTH if you had generous friends… and a huge pile of chips. Goddamn.
I didn’t do school lunch often but I was always a fan of the cheese filled bread sticks. I loved them so much we found somewhere to buy them and keep in the freezer for when I had a craving.
My high school had "The Gobbler". Hot turkey sandwich on a bulky roll with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy. Almost everyone bought lunch on those days.
So, my Middle School… had **milkshakes**, that could be ordered with the normal lunches instead of plain milk. No idea how or why, but they the were the complete and utter bomb.
And then came high school, and the tiny crappy milk cartons, and the first taste of crushing disappointment.
Other than that, high school had big old slices of pizza (I forget if it was Pizza Hit or Dominoes), which were awesome.
Back in the late 80s, my public school in nyc served a fried fish sandwich with American cheese baked inside of it. I have yet to ever find or even see them again and im dying to have one
My school only did cold lunches for most of my time there. All I can ever remember was peanut butter and jelly on a hard roll with a slice of American yellow cheese slapped on top for protein (that’s what the parents were told). Served with an apple or banana, and chocolate milk. You had to get your lunch, even if you brought your own. And if you didn’t want it, you through it right in the trash.
My last year of elementary school and all 4 years of high school, they changed to a hot lunch. But the options were still just hot sandwiches. High school got better, with nuggets and fries. Drink choices were better too, canned Snapple.
Mine was the Delmarvalous chicken--shout out!--with the parsleyed potatoes and the apple crisp.
That dessert seems to take forever to make irl but it's still lush when it's done.
In West Virginia they would have homemade pepperoni rolls to serve with tomato soup instead of grilled cheese sandwich and would give you a big stick of yellow cheese to shove in it.
My high school had what they called pepperoni rolls. 5" roll of dough with pepperoni & mozzarella cooked inside. I've never seen them outside of there... absolute best. Even better than the school pizza.
It was an extra dollar in 1992 for the extra piece on the left. Your telling me the Public School system doesn’t have any money?
"Roman Holiday" which was basically rotini pasta with ground beef in a thin sauce with optional shredded mozzarella. My mom was a 'lunch lady' in my school system so she had to make it. I ask her to make it for me every once in a while still.
Also, the chocolate chip cookies. I cannot find a dupe for the almost cake like cookies.
There were two lines at my school.
Al-acarte
Or
“Poor kids” standard trays
I used both, but preferred the tray line due to the healthier variety and dramatically shorter wait due to the stigma of using that line (I really didn’t care)
It always bugged me that the alacarte line users ate nothing but fries and pizza every day.
The tray line had some fun combinations. Walking Taco day was my favorite.
Timing was always important too. Lunch bell rang at 10:41am and the next classes started at 11:20am.
School books were not allowed so it required a 5-10min trip to your locker (the cafeteria was on the west side of the building). Had to account for this on the return trip too.
The alacarte line took 15-20mins
The tray line took 2-5mins
Always felt rushed…learned a really BAD habit of eating too fast that I struggle with 25 years later.
The left lunch. School pizza (preferably with sausage), corn and chocolate milk. Not very healthy looking back, but tasty.
Also in early elementary school we use to still get dessert with every lunch. I use to love the chocolate cake with white icing.
I loved the octagon fiesta pizza. Also the chicken patty with mashed potatoes. And the chocolate mik of course!
my school called them fiestadas. whether or not that was the actual name of them i don’t know, but that’s what i will always call them.
My school called them Mexican pizza.
I can confirm pic on the right is a fiestada
Why did they ever stop serving those? I currently teach in the same elementary school that I attended. My only disappointment has been the lack of fiestada pizza!
You son of a bitch. I just got taken back to 6th grade.
Did we just become friends?! It’s like you are me and I am you
Okay you guys are lucky. We had some sort of meat product with something resembling beans and something resembling a vegetable. We did have the chocolate milk too. All for $1.40. # Until high school, then we had pizza, fries, meatballs, chicken sandwiches, etc. Although I do remember a cafeteria worker once yelling at me because I refused to change my order from French fries to "freedom fries."
Are you referring to something not in the picture? Those there are hexagons ✌️
https://preview.redd.it/l6jb0ws1jl2d1.jpeg?width=886&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eebc648055dbfccdb6a3e1123073ac37bb998b78 I’ve only have seen these in school.
Hospitals have them sometimes!
My dad would bring them home from the hospital he worked at.
Definitely had these after the birth of my kids. Jammed a straw right in there just like old times.
This might sound weird but on the unfortunate times our family has had to be at the hospital either for a relative or myself included, I always looked forward to the hospital food(cafeteria food) 😂🤦🏻♂️
Ours would often be kind of frozen. It was like a fun lil slushy.
I associate those with rehab and mental hospitals. First you want nothing, then you want everything and those little juices are awesome.
Holy smokes! I’d forgotten these guys. These were a quarter in our lunchroom and break rooms! A half frozen grape juice after recess was one of life’s greatest pleasures.
They also have prune juice at the hospital.
Mix it with Milk of Magnesia and you’ve got what’s called a “brown cow” 💩
Taco salad in high school, shit was the bomb!
Same here. Did you have that hard shell boat/bowl? I've tried to replicate it but could never figure it out.
I worked at Taco Bell back in the day and the taco salad bowl was just a deep fried tortilla we had a metal device not sure what it's called that pushed in the bottom and the sides out to make the shape when we deep fried it. Hope that was somewhat helpful.
Put a tortilla on a hat and deep fry it
We had "Super Beef Nachos" at our elementary school.
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You can’t just SAY that here and not drop links!!!! Please!!!!!
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Dang, $44 for 16 count. Inflation be messing with the nostalgia.
Maybe because I live in NYC, but at $2.75 per pizza that seems like a steal to me.
that's the price per 2"x3" slice if you read the description carefully.
It had me, until the $101 shipping! Fuck that
Chat GPT4o says that Schwans Tonys pizza was the main distributor of pizza to schools in the 90s. https://www.foodservicedirect.com/schwans-tonys-smart-thin-crust-whole-grain-cheese-pepperoni-pizza-4-48-ounce-96-per-case-191481.html?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmMayBhDuARIsAM9HM8fopvADUENnXlKEZXAa8fQ6jFH3YFwUHEqFqWJRGu_jSI80e-DRZCkaAvdrEALw_wcB
That's actually a good deal, just over a buck each. The pizza rectangle was my favorite school lunch.
God bless you! Thank you!!
It's not the same without corn. Why was this pizza ALWAYS served with corn? Does corn have some magical vitamins that make up for the nutritional void of the pizza?
Go down a YouTube Cornhole and you'll better understand the US govt and why corn was with so many meals.
Goddamn, I guess they really were just feeding the entire generation the same thing. With those weird milk bags.
Bags? We had tiny cartons. My kids now know the roulette of cafeteria milk but only one has figured out to smell it before chugging.
We had the cartons at first but then they transitioned to these industrial looking clear square bags that you had to stab with a straw like Capri Sun. It was weird. No matter how cold the bag was, the milk was always somehow warm once it made it through the straw and into your mouth. The only part about them that I liked was that you could press your fingers into the bag and stretch the material to make it resemble a cow udder. Good times.
I still think milk tastes better out of those cartons. I wish they sold them that way.
School is over for the summer but find a fifth grader to smuggle them out. Kids like cash. I tried candy and soda but they demanded a buck a carton. At that point I agreed just because I didn’t want to get reported trying to bribe children with candy. They’d never believe I was after that sweet sweet elementary milk.
Good ol' milk bag. That's now going to be my wife's nickname. Makes it better that we don't have children.
Pizza + corn = nutrinal balance. It's science.
Farming subsidies accomplished by lobbyists
Pricey though
Oh my God, I might have to plan a nostalgia party just to do a shop-up here 😍
I'm pretty sure I saw the rectangle ones at a grocery store not too long ago
We had these little yellow burritos that were kind of crunchy and had a slightly spicy beef and bean filling. I would eat five of those right now if I could find a place that replicates it.
Oooh! I was just waxing poetic about something similar. Ours were basically chimichangas…honestly probably one of those cheap frozen burritos, but deep fried if I remember correctly. They were called “crispitos” at my school. They were sooo good!!
They were called "crispitos" at my school in Indianapolis years and years ago and I still think about them often. Loved those things. I actually would go to school lunches (pre covid) with my children on crispitos lunch days. So good!!
I find the El Monterey frozen burritos to be VERY similar when baked.
That sounds like a beef and bean chimichanga.
Yes! In middle school we got a salad bar they'd bring out once a week, and it came with one of those burritos. That was my favorite day of the week because I could get more food than what I got in the line. I couldn't believe I got as much salad as I wanted *and* one of those burritos. Felt like gaming the system. If anyone in Texas sees this and also liked those burritos, sometimes HEB has them as grab-and-go food. I had one last week. Still love them. I add a bit of Taco Bell Diablo sauce now.
Yesss!! Came here to say this! We called them “chilitos” lol
Loved chili day as it came with a cinnamon roll. You could buy a second one or try and beg and barter for someone’s. There was a really weird kid who was known to not want their cinnamon roll and they became the most popular kid around lunch time.
this was baffling to me as a transplant to the midwest. i got on board fast.
Is this just a Midwest thing? I mean…uh…what did kids elsewhere eat on “chili and cinnamon rolls” day?!
Yes! The cinnamon rolls were the best part of chili day!
This is Cincinnati coded
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I have spent many meals trying to replicate this. It was my absolute favorite.
Yep.
Do you guys remember in elementary school when they would print out the colored monthly calendar that had that months lunch menu on it? I would hang it on the fridge and look at it all the time and get excited for what was for lunch. It had little cartoon drawings on it. It was in the 80’s.
Yes, I loved it even though my mom made me bring healthy lunch from home. I still would keep the calendar and look at what was coming. Sometimes I could convince my mom to let me buy a lunch on pizza pocket day.
Yeah! And you would plan out what days you were bringing stuff from home a month in advance because some meals were UNACCEPTABLE and your parents needed to put in the right amount for your lunch account
They serve this turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes with the Hawaiian roll kind of like bun fruit it vary from orange slices apple slices banana to this day I would love to try that turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes and it was nothing like a Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes it was a different recipe here in Arizona don't know if anybody else has experienced this little bit of Heaven from childhood
Turkey gravy over mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. 🔥
I just posted about that too! This is close: https://www.thecountrycook.net/crock-pot-chicken-and-gravy/ Close enough to scratch the itch for me.
oh you sweet sweet person you are I know what I'm making for din din yes
Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad with vinagrette, slice of Italian bread with butter, milk, canned peaches. Also that open face hot turkey sandwich you got the day before Thanksgiving and winter break, they usually made a real desert for that one like apple crumble. Sometimes we got grilled cheese and tomato soup, but not often enough.
Where did you go to school? None of the school lunches I experienced were ever like that. That's restaurant-sounding fare.
Orange County NY mid 80s-90s. We had our fair share of slop- frozen nasty burgers, hot dogs, tacos, chicken nuggets, bog standard rectangle pizza every Friday-but at least in elementary school and middle school they cooked real food about 50% of the time. The formula seemed to be main dish, frozen vegetable or salad, fruit cup, milk.
Well it still sounds better than the lunches I got LoL!
Same. I had either a mushed up peanut butter and jelly soggy sandwich or the pizza like in the pic. Fiestada ruled!
I loved the burger we got. And the cheapo pickles. I got in trouble in the fourth grade for having a burger made mostly of pickles, one of the lunch aides was scolding me “you will eat all of those pickles” I just laughed and I was like why did you think I put 37 pickles on here? Mmmm I can still taste them to this day.
Aides were the worst part of elementary school by far. Nasty little tyrants!
Same for me. Grew up in southern Maryland, in the DC metro area.
The turkey, it was so dry. I'd probably say the pizza rectangle was the best, it was predictable in quality not too dry & had cheese & sausage.
Those Mexican pizzas were my favorite!
Everything was second fiddle to the chocolate milk.
Steak nuggets with mashed potatoes and gravy and a yeast roll
Steak fingers
Dude yes, that just unlocked a memory. Yeah I remember making little mashed potato nugget sliders.
We had á La carte in middle/high school and I got some of the most unhealthiest combinations imaginable. I remember getting French fries and mozzarella sticks with a big side bowl of nacho cheese to dunk them in.
Same there were some kids at my school who had "Italian dunkers" (aka garlic cheesebread with marinara dipping sauce for those who called it something else) most days due to the A la Carte line. Lol kids might not deserve choices if that's the choice they're going to make every single day.
When I was in middle school (89-91) everyday they had a regular meal and pizza and fries. I miss that metabolism, because I only ever ate the pizza and fries everyday!!
As a Brit it would be Chocolate Sponge cake with pink custard.
I always hated that. But the iced buns… ooooh. I’d devour the hell out of them!
Literally spaghetti noodles with nacho cheese sauce. The fucking best. I think the lunch ladies were stoners.
Lol, I'm sure they were. And they were cool, not hypocrites that narc you out like my English teacher that would show up to class reeking of menthol cigarettes & bust the smokers in the bathroom across from her class.
That damn square pizza I loved it
We had these things called crispitos that were always the most popular. Buy extra on those days. Chicken patties were good, too, when they actually used real meat and not the pink slime shit.
Bell & Evans makes frozen breaded chicken patties that are made with high quality chicken.!
Cheese Zombie (east bay represent), also taco boat
You can get that rectangle pizza it’s like 115 bucks for 96
Fiestada 4 life, yo!
Loved nacho day! Round tortilla chips, earned up nacho cheese and that greasy ass "meat"...I'll take 2 please!
Porkroll, egg and cheese.
My highschool used to have these fucking bomb ass bagels. The outsides were crispy, the insides were stretchy and fluffy. They didn't need to be toasted, they were almost like a big french bread dinner roll. I don't know if they were particular to my school, but I have never found another bagel like them, and I continue to be heartbroken. For the stuff I think everyone got, I miss cafeteria chicken nuggets. No other chicken nuggets are like the ones in the school cafeteria.
You know, you're right, there is no chicken nuggets like those that I've ever found.
Taco bar. Pools of orange grease on the taco meat. I ate mountains of taco salad. I need a couple of Tums just remebering...
Square pizza and tacos! But honestly, love the trays! Ours were off-white. I wish they still used them. Much less waste.
Ham & Cheese on a Pretzel Roll/Bun.
Pizza Fridays! Even though the pizza they served in elementary school was terrible, I loved it just the same. I thought I was living like as king when I got to middle school and they actually ordered out to Domino's. Which was also the worst of the pizza chains. BUT IT WAS STILL COOL!
Yeah, we were ballers when we had domino's availability & the money.
There is a pizza shop in my town that sells fiestadas. They are exactly like the school lunch ones and I love it. Fiestada day was always double lunch day. When my swim team was doing double practices I could put down 4 of them no problem. Edit: On chicken nugget day me and my buddy would skip class and hit up the cafeteria right as the last lunch period ended and they would pile all the left-over nuggets on our plates. We called it the "pothead platter."
Ok. This may sound weird, but when I was a little kid in Escambia County Florida, the schools served fried chicken breast once a week. They were small, but they were seriously delicious. Everyone got excited on chicken day. By the time I was in highschool they didn't serve it anymore, but I still remember how good it was.
Same experience here (Okaloosa County)
The Montebello school district used to serve an empanada that I've never been able to find anywhere else. It was the best beef-with-cheese-sauce empanada I've ever had. To this day - DECADES LATER - I have a Pavlovian reaction whenever I think about it. 🧉🦄
I too have an empanada shaped hole in my life. I have got really close recently to duplicating the picadillo recipe I'm craving.
Hamburgers. They looked like shit but tasted like heaven, specially after gym class
Spaghetti and salad!
We had veggie rings that were served with a spicy sweet and sour sauce. Don’t know why but those or chef salad day was the best.
If you have a Save A Lot near you, chances are they have the same pizzas. I used to get them occasionally just for the little trip down memory lane. But to answer your question, my high school cafeteria would sometimes make homemade calzones. People would legit run to lunch to be sure to get one before they ran out.
Arby's. Not even joking, not once in my life did I eat school cafeteria food. I took my lunch in elementary school. Our middle and high schools served Arby's, Pizza Hut, and KFC, plus nachos. You could go into the cafeteria to eat but anyone with a couple bucks chose the "Commons Area" which had the above options. We also had a bunch of vending machines for snacks and sodas. What's weird to me is this is a really low income area so I'm surprised it was lucrative enough for the fast food places to haul food over every day.
That's that 90's shit I dreamed about. My HS had a taco bell, but it was removed the year before I started
I loved cornbread.
I always find this topic interesting, we didn’t have school lunches when I went! We all brought packed lunches.
Pizza burgers, cream chicken over mashed potatoes, turkey and mashed potatoes. We lived in a semi rural area for my elementary school, class sizes was smaller and almost everything was made from scratch. In fifth grade, you could work in the kitchen helping the ladies and wash the dishes for a free meal.
My school had the best salad bar, always daily yogurt from Yoplait- the factory was in town- and I’d come to school early for the breakfast pizza. The regular pizza and Mexican pizza were good, too. Really, most lunches were pretty good. You could also get sandwiches if you didn’t like the main entree. The Turkey and lettuce on a hamburger bun would sometimes hit just right!
And with chocolate milk followed by Little Debbie’s crispy chocolate cookie?
Cream of turkey over mashed potatoes, taco salad, and in elementary, I was obsessed with the mushy spinach.
I was always so jealous of kids who went to school with hot lunch. We had to pack our lunches until High School. Jamaican Beef Patties were my fav in high school.
Wait….. your high school served Jamaican patties?!?! I’m simultaneously jealous and impressed!
Yep. So good. I lived in an area with a lot of Caribbean people.
🥹 Living in the PNW now so it’s difficult to find authentic Caribbean food
Dollar tree has goldenkrust beef,spicy beef, chicken curry, and vegetable paddies. They are fantastic
Steak sammich Think Steak-Umms type sammich
The pizza that came in the plastic and the Super donuts were the absolute best fucking things they had.
The pizza was definitely a favorite of mine. Every Friday at my high school we had chicken finger/french fry baskets. Everyone lined up for that
I was quite fond of the taco shell cheese boat with sausage thing
Nacho bar
Thursday’s were always chili beans with cornbread and wacky cake. So good
The taco salad with the weird hard shell boat. Pizza was ok but I preferred the breakfast pizza. Chicken sandwich was also good.
I believe the pizza things on the right were “tostadas” on my elementary school menu. I loved them.
Bro. Those Mexican pizzas are the best. GFS carries them, but you have to buy a box of like 240.
Fiestada day was the best day for our elementary school. Followed sooooo closely by sausage pizza day.
Chimichanga day!
I definitely didn't mind the square pizzas but our school had Godfather's personal pan pizzas that were pretty good too. And I also loved the simple ham & swiss sandwiches.
Hot dog. I used to put some of the baked beans on top and add mustard for a makeshift chili-dog.
Something about that square piece of school cafeteria pizza on Friday was so satisfying. I also loved the pizza bagels in high school.
In junior high, they had these humongous cinnamon rolls that were amazing.
I only ever got hot lunch on pizza days, so pizza I guess
Yeah the Sausage pizza was the best!
Pizza every Friday. We also had fiesta sticks that we’d dip in sour cream and salsa. What I did not enjoy was the Salisbury steaks that looked like they had grilled tire tracks on them. They were so bad.
The fake pizza things on the right…I always wanted to eat cause it’s like pizza, but would give me a headache every time… I was like 7? But religiously headache…. Onetime in the lunch line I was walking and pushing my fingernails along concrete wall… I came across a paint chip, wooo right under fingernail that sucked
The pizza at my school tasted like Playdoh, and I hated the milk. The only time I enjoyed lunch was when they gave us breakfast. That facon bacon was absolutely delicious.
Always pizza day!
In highschool every so often we would be served a veal parm sandwich on a 5" round bun. The patty was slightly larger than the bun, and smothered in marinara and mozzarella. I loved it then, but wonder what my perception would be today.
Rectangle pizza was superior to the hexagonal pizza. And if the pizza is a bit overdone, even better!
Nacho boat day! A huge tortilla… in the shape of a bowl… filled with hot, melted cheese or salsa…. Or BOTH if you had generous friends… and a huge pile of chips. Goddamn.
I didn’t do school lunch often but I was always a fan of the cheese filled bread sticks. I loved them so much we found somewhere to buy them and keep in the freezer for when I had a craving.
I think I'm in the minority, I hated school pizza. It was always a soggy mess.
The left! My mouth actually started watering 🤣
Anyone else hollow out the roll and stuff it with spaghetti?
The pizza on the left looks like the crap pizza my school served. Pizza on the right actually looks good!
Gumbo. Damn them ladies could cook.
I miss the pizza
I don’t know if this is a near Philly thing, but they used to make these French bread pizzas that were amazing
Chilito / chili cheese burrito They served these in middle school.
They had a lunch cart at mine that had large baked that day chocolate chip cookies.
I didn't love the school pizza. I tolerated the cheese pizza, the sausage variety was nasty.
My elementary school lunch was abysmal. High school had great cheeseburgers though and Pizza Hut on Fridays. Cant complain there
RECTANGLE PIZZA AND CORN!!!!!
The tacos.
Mexican pizza!
On the menu this was call Mexican Pizza at my high school and it was amazing
I hate to say it but just the plain nachos. Shit today is all dressed up; just give me chips, crappy cheese product and call it a day.
My high school had "The Gobbler". Hot turkey sandwich on a bulky roll with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy. Almost everyone bought lunch on those days.
So, my Middle School… had **milkshakes**, that could be ordered with the normal lunches instead of plain milk. No idea how or why, but they the were the complete and utter bomb. And then came high school, and the tiny crappy milk cartons, and the first taste of crushing disappointment. Other than that, high school had big old slices of pizza (I forget if it was Pizza Hit or Dominoes), which were awesome.
Hot ham and cheese! We also had Super Donuts for breakfast, and those are available online.
I lived off Oreos & Yoo-hoo
The yellow gravy.
Back in the late 80s, my public school in nyc served a fried fish sandwich with American cheese baked inside of it. I have yet to ever find or even see them again and im dying to have one
I went to school in Louisiana. We legit got gumbo every now and then, and I can still taste it.
My school only did cold lunches for most of my time there. All I can ever remember was peanut butter and jelly on a hard roll with a slice of American yellow cheese slapped on top for protein (that’s what the parents were told). Served with an apple or banana, and chocolate milk. You had to get your lunch, even if you brought your own. And if you didn’t want it, you through it right in the trash. My last year of elementary school and all 4 years of high school, they changed to a hot lunch. But the options were still just hot sandwiches. High school got better, with nuggets and fries. Drink choices were better too, canned Snapple.
Mine was the Delmarvalous chicken--shout out!--with the parsleyed potatoes and the apple crisp. That dessert seems to take forever to make irl but it's still lush when it's done.
Chicken nuggets!
i never had the one on the right. rectangle soft sausage pizza was good.
In West Virginia they would have homemade pepperoni rolls to serve with tomato soup instead of grilled cheese sandwich and would give you a big stick of yellow cheese to shove in it.
My high school had what they called pepperoni rolls. 5" roll of dough with pepperoni & mozzarella cooked inside. I've never seen them outside of there... absolute best. Even better than the school pizza.
Italian Dunkers
It was an extra dollar in 1992 for the extra piece on the left. Your telling me the Public School system doesn’t have any money? 
I liked the pancakes and sausage that were made corndog style with the pancake wrapped around the sausage.
"Roman Holiday" which was basically rotini pasta with ground beef in a thin sauce with optional shredded mozzarella. My mom was a 'lunch lady' in my school system so she had to make it. I ask her to make it for me every once in a while still. Also, the chocolate chip cookies. I cannot find a dupe for the almost cake like cookies.
Hoagies. I would always put the potato sticks on mine.
Rib-a-Que, knockoff McRib Peperoni Pizza
Fiestada!!!!
Chicken nuggets washed down with some chocolate milk.
THOSE PIZZAS omg I want some right now.
Pasta bar!
When you saw those cardboard crisper boxes you knew lunch was gonna be good for the day.
Mozzarella sticks. Served every Thursday for 5 bucks.
There were two lines at my school. Al-acarte Or “Poor kids” standard trays I used both, but preferred the tray line due to the healthier variety and dramatically shorter wait due to the stigma of using that line (I really didn’t care) It always bugged me that the alacarte line users ate nothing but fries and pizza every day. The tray line had some fun combinations. Walking Taco day was my favorite. Timing was always important too. Lunch bell rang at 10:41am and the next classes started at 11:20am. School books were not allowed so it required a 5-10min trip to your locker (the cafeteria was on the west side of the building). Had to account for this on the return trip too. The alacarte line took 15-20mins The tray line took 2-5mins Always felt rushed…learned a really BAD habit of eating too fast that I struggle with 25 years later.
Going home
I browned bagged it till high school…when you could still get a coke and fries and gravy
The left lunch. School pizza (preferably with sausage), corn and chocolate milk. Not very healthy looking back, but tasty. Also in early elementary school we use to still get dessert with every lunch. I use to love the chocolate cake with white icing.
The chicken, gravy, and potato slurry.
Hot Dog days with chocolate milk