USC

PHOTOS: USC’s Midnight Breakfast

Sweet treats replace sweet dreams at USC Dining’s semi-annual finals event.

By Jason Goode
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(Photo by Jason Goode)

For any USC student staying up all night to study for finals, comfort food is a necessity and a predetermined break is a sweet luxury.

One event, put on every semester during study days before fall and spring finals by USC Dining, allows students to “fuel [their] studying with a breakfast break.” Aptly titled “Midnight Breakfast,” this past spring’s meal took place at midnight on May 3.

While USC has hosted this event for at least a decade, according to the associate director of campus dining Carlos Perez, this past semester’s Midnight Breakfast switched things up and utilized all three campus dining locations over the course of one night instead of using one location over multiple nights.

Each dining hall offered unique menu options like churros and Mexican hot chocolate at the Village, brownies, ice cream and Nashville fried chicken at Parkside and pork belly, takoyaki and boba at Everybody’s Kitchen, or EVK.

Perez said the dinner options were not based on cultural themes. Instead, “the chefs designed the menus to introduce new items not on our regular menus that showcased their culinary creativity,” he said.

Brian Delgado, a freshman studying computer science and business administration who was waiting to get into the Village dining hall, said he and a friend had been in line for an hour and a half and “when [he] arrived, the line was past Insomnia Cookies.”

According to Perez, 2,440 people attended this semester’s breakfast, exceeding the pre-pandemic average of about 2,100 students per semester.

The students at USC flocked to experience this once-a-semester event, and Annenberg Media captured some photos of the emotions and moments from the night.

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Students line up in front of EVK while they wait for their meal around 1 a.m. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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Boba drinks line a countertop inside EVK. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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Students have relaxed conversations with friends and drink Boba inside EVK as they wait patiently for their turn to get food. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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“The inside line took around 15 minutes to get through,” according to Kevin Luo, a freshman studying electrical engineering. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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Luo was glad he went, despite the wait and long line. “The experience mattered more than the meal itself,” Luo said. The food didn’t disappoint, though, as Midnight Breakfast was “the best meal I’ve had at EVK hands down,” according to Luo. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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EVK served a variety of items, including caramelized pork belly bites, corn dogs, furikake french fries, spring rolls, egg toast, karaage fried chicken and takoyaki. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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This semester, additional outdoor tables and the backroom in EVK were used to accommodate the large number of students. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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Students at the Village waited in lines which extended past Dulce in the USC Village. (Photo by Jason Goode)
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At 1:40 a.m., two USC dining employees closed the gate behind the last students in line at the USC Village, ending the opportunity for any additional students looking for a midnight meal to come through. (Photo by Jason Goode)

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