There’s only one place where a GW student’s first Thursday night in college can end: Carvings.
Everyone went through the experience as a first-year: going out to Decades for the nightclub’s 18+ night and stumbling back to campus in desperate need of sustenance from the only late-night eatery on campus. The restaurant, located below Potomac House, serves up fried favorites like chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks until 2 a.m. on Thursday and 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
During a four-hour-long stakeout in the beloved campus snack shack, The Hatchet documented the sights and sounds in Carvings on the first Thursday night of the academic year — awkward first-year interactions, mozzarella sticks and all.
9 p.m.
We arrive — perhaps not shockingly, considering the time — as the only patrons of Carvings. To earn our table at the venerated GW culinary institution, we buy a Diet Coke and fries, settling into a table with four seats in the back corner, ready to perform a level of investigative, shoe-leather journalism not seen since Woodward and Bernstein.
A group enters Carvings, all in workout clothes. They purchase food and a bottle of orange juice, a can of San Pellegrino and a Red Bull can, respectively, with the last beverage clearly being key preparation for a big first night out as a college student. A part-acoustic, part-techno cover of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” plays over the speakers. The group settles at a long table next to us to wait for their meals.
Twenty minutes later, the Three Musketeers are still enjoying the kickoff to their night on the town as the person who ordered a Red Bull finishes the last bites of his quesadilla, and the guy with a San Pellegrino takes his time on some fries. A fourth person, who burst into Carvings in blue Crocs, plops alongside the trio before dashing up to order a chicken quesadilla.
The initial trio departs the restaurant, but two new people sit next to the man in Crocs. The fashionable footwear fellow complains that he’s still extremely hungry, to which one of his friends suggests he get chocolate milk.
Not fond of this suggestion, he mutters “F*ck” and turns to a new Carvings patron with huge first-year energy — rocking a GW sweater and just ordered a FIJI Water using GWorld. He asks if the dining halls are still open, clearly dismayed to learn they close in five minutes. He mutters another obscenity and declares that he’s given up, going up to the front to buy more french fries.
10 p.m.
We turn our attention to the ceiling above the Carvings couch, where there’s a live count of the eatery’s Instagram followers — 1,393 at the time. We both follow and see the counter slowly tick up to 1,394 and, after a multi-minute delay, to 1,395. Perhaps the most exciting moment of the evening thus far.
Forty minutes later, one student mentions to the other that he could’ve made it to class in time but was feeling lazy and told his professor that it was “super unclear” if the class was in-person or online, and he stayed home instead. They promptly leave Carvings without ordering, apparently also unclear on the purpose of the locale.
Just before 11 p.m., a new patron enters Carvings: a tall twenty-something with headphones sitting atop his head. He sits down at the table next to us and waits for chicken tenders while sipping a vanilla Coke. The headphones still don’t cover his ears, presumably because he so badly wants to hear the cover of Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are” playing over the speakers.
11 p.m.
We decide to order Carvings’ famed mozzarella sticks to get us through the evening — and immediately drop one onto the floor because they’re too hot. But after letting them cool down, we find heaven: gooey mozzarella mixed with an expertly breaded exterior, just like three years ago.
Two mysterious individuals, who may or may not be the authors of this article, eat a mozzarella stick “Lady and the Tramp” style. The man with headphones takes a sip of his vanilla Coke and looks at us, confused.
Just after, Carvings requests to follow both of this story’s writers on Instagram, helping keep independent journalism thriving.
As midnight nears, the world is abuzz with news. Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted the Democratic nomination for president. The Mets hold a 3 to 1 lead over the Padres in the bottom of the sixth inning.
And yet, Carvings is quiet — no people stumbling in because of premature intoxication, no bonds strengthened over chicken tenders or failed attempts at flirting on the Carvings couch.
Midnight
A group of six enters and gathers around the long table right next to the door of the restaurant, hanging onto every word of one of their members who spins a tale about a magical place none of them seem to have heard of: District House.
The storyteller explains that at District House, not only does a meal swipe get you a meal, but it also includes a drink and a side. And that’s not all, he adds as the eyes of his peers twinkle and he waves a mozzarella stick for emphasis. The food there? It’s even better than in Thurston.
One of his disciples, seemingly thinking this is too good to be true, manages to stammer out a question: “Is there anything wrong with District House?”
The reply: They always get your order wrong.
Another group enters Carvings, stumbling onto the table. Just before they get up to the front, we dash up for round three of mozzarella sticks. One of the members of the group interrupted our Pulitzer-contending coverage to ask about a sticker from Huntington Beach on one of our laptops. He pointed at it, saying he too was from California.
Before conversation could continue, two girls walked in the door, and the sticker fiend suddenly shifted his attention toward the girls. In an act of suave rizz, the man asks a question bound to elicit interesting conversation and seduction: what their years and majors were.
One says she is a business major, to which our debonair gentleman responds with something that totally isn’t condescending: “I’m going to be running the company that hires you.”
He asks for their phone numbers, but his previous comments didn’t appear to charm them enough to exchange digits. He leaves Carvings in defeat.
We stay for several more minutes, but the restaurant only receives a trickle of customers. People walk by outside, and they don’t even glance at the establishment that had once been a sanctuary for GW’s inebriated masses.
