Darwin Cambridge Views

General Goods

The sandwiches at Darwin's really are some of the best in Cambridge. Fresh ingredients, excellent bread, interesting combinations. However, the service is absolutely terrible. Last time I went there, I waited 45 minutes for my sandwich. 45 minutes! For a sandwich with three ingredients at an over-the-counter deli. The time before that, there were hardly any other customers in the place, and I stood at the counter for 5 minutes, completely ignored, waiting to place my order, only to be given a completely condescending and sarcastic attitude from the person taking the orders. Unfortunately, Darwin's is so popular in the neighborhood that they have no incentive to improve their service. Terrible.

Sometimes when I'm at work, lunch calls for something better than what the adjacent Shell Gas Station has to offer. Sometimes, I head over to Darwin's Cambridge Street location. The sandwiches are deeelish and the staff serves you with a friendly smile but when it comes to finding a seat you're pressing your luck. Group tables are peppered with nerd-surfers and data-darlings who all know the game: one laptop user per table, and take up as many tables as possible, and when a sea of patrons stare at you surfing, kindly smile and remember: surf away, look away. This little restaurant is best summed up as a cyber cafe, with some tasty takeaway if you're hungry. So without a laptop, I am stuck sipping my sanpel and chomping on my sandwich back at the office.

Founded in 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and women. The college is named after the family of one of the university's most famous graduates, Charles Darwin. The Darwin family previously owned some of the land on which the college now sits.

In 1994, Darwin College completed construction of a new library and study centre along the side of the Granary. The centre is built on a narrow strip of land alongside the millpond in Cambridge, and uses a structure of green oak and lime mortar brickwork. The building uses high-level automatically opening windows and a chimney to control natural ventilation. Unfortunately the green oak dried and shrank, causing the window frames to jam, so the system failed. The building had been designed with special connections which could be tightened to account for the shrinkage, but these also warped, and could not be used.