During lunch West Anchorage High School has an open campus, where students can go out to eat with a variety of options nearby. Places that students like to go to are New Sagaya, Carrs, McDonald’s, Subway, Taco King, Taco Bell, Panda Express, and Bear Tooth Theatre Pub and Grill. All of these places are in a in 1-2 mile radius of West, as well as 10-15 more food options, which leads to kids driving to a restaurant to get lunch.

Jared Harjehausen, a senior at West, says that his favorite places to eat are New Sagaya, Panda Express, and McDonalds based on the quality and the price of the food. “New Sagaya has a good variety of food and is fairly inexpensive, Panda Express is pretty good quality food for around here, and McDonald’s is great because it’s super cheap and tastes good,” says Harjehausen.  

Harjehausen also spends a little less than $50 a week on food and gets the money from various jobs for his family. This is also how he decides where he wants to go to lunch on any given day. Harjehausen says that price does matter for what he purchases during the lunch period.“ Somedays when I have less money than what I normally do, I go to McDonald’s.”

One thing Harjehausen alluded to was the fact that every place he goes to is so close to West. “It’s an advantage of having restaurants close to West because then I know I won’t be late to my 4th hour class,” he said. Harjehausen also said he thinks so many kids from West like to go lunch because it’s a good way to bond with friends and he thinks that students moved away from eating in the cafeteria as there is more freedom to go out to lunch nowadays.

Chris Brandeberry, another senior at West, says his favorite places to eat are Taco King, Bear Tooth, and New Sagaya. “Carne Asada burrito, pizza, and sesame chicken are my favorite foods when I go to those places,” said Brandeberry. He says he always has money for lunch as he gets it from his job at Uncle Joe’s Pizzeria. “I spend about $30 per week when I go out to lunch.” He also thinks that it is an advantage for younger students who can’t drive, like freshman and some sophomores to be able to go out to lunch because everything is so close in a 1-2 mile radius from the school, that they can walk.

One thing students may not think about the stress employees can deal with during lunch when high school students flood into a restaurant. Michaela Jones, an employee at Bear Tooth Theater Pub and Grill, says while it isn’t stressful when West students come in, it is tough to figure out how many people will come in that day.

Jones says, “It get’s challenging because we never know how many kids are coming, so there will be two kids and we’ll have extra pizza and sometimes we’ll have 30 of them and they’ll be late for school.” Jones said that kids get frustrated sometimes when it comes to not getting their food right away. “A lot of frustration comes from when kids not understanding our system and how we need to do things,” says Jones.

It’s amazing how in 40 minutes West students can go out to lunch and be back in time for their next class.