We all know the feeling — you have an hour between classes, and you have to choose which cafe to go to on campus, a truly difficult decision. Sometimes you have to choose based on location, or sometimes based on price, but most of the time you choose based on what each cafe has to offer. If you head to the Golden Bear Cafe, you’ll find fairly OK burritos, and if you head to Yali’s Cafe, you’ll find some pretty solid smoothies. But honestly, we at the Clog truly believe that the best cafe on campus is Pat Brown’s — and we have the facts to prove it.

1. The food — all hail the chicken pesto panini

This is a given, but the food at Pat Brown’s is just so much more interesting than a fairly OK burrito from GBC or a random dish at your dining hall. Pat Brown’s offers paninis, salads, burgers and a huge amount of sides, and they’re all pretty good. Sure, it’s not a five-star Parisian restaurant, but it’s definitely better than GBC. We love the chicken pesto panini, because it tastes great, pesto is awesome and it’s easy to transport to and from class.

2. The location — far away from everyone and everything

Pat Brown’s is literally miles away from everything you might be doing. That means Pat Brown’s location is just perfect if you want to escape the hustle and bustle of the more common areas of campus and study or just take a breather. Everyone needs a little time to themselves at some point, so head over to Pat Brown’s if you’re seeking some good, fun isolation.

3. Being surrounded by graduate students who can motivate you to be a better person

Pat Brown’s is frequented a lot by graduate students, which means you can eavesdrop on their conversations. Don’t lie, we all know you do it. You can get some real insight into their lives and decide right then and there whether you want to go to graduate school, what you want to do in the future and basically what you want to do with your whole life. Next time you’re considering going to a career fair or reading a book about your profession, just don’t do either and head over to Pat Brown’s for some real, genuine advice. Learned secondhand, of course.

4. Getting Peet’s Coffee & Tea with meal points

Perhaps the biggest perk is getting Peet’s with meal points along with your meal. Many campus cafes don’t even accept meal points, but here you can kill two birds with one stone and get a great meal along with your coffee. If you have hundreds of meal points stacked up and no idea how you can possibly use them, then trek all the way over to Pat Brown’s and use them on coffee. One of the great pleasures of life is getting something for free, and meal points aren’t real money, right?

5. Indoor eating area means you can avoid vicious squirrels

It wouldn’t be a Daily Clog article if we didn’t talk about squirrels. At a lot of eating areas around campus, squirrels can be a huge nuisance and can stop you from having a nice, relaxing lunch. But Pat Brown’s has a solution. The cafe has both an outdoor eating area for you vampires that have been studying all day in Main Stacks and just want to feel some sun, as well as an indoor area perfect for avoiding truly terrifying squirrels. So when you’re running away from a squirrel, take shelter in Pat Brown’s, pick up a chicken pesto panini and eavesdrop on some graduate student conversations.

See you at Pat Brown’s, fellow Bears!