As a University of Utah Alumnus and twenty-five-year Central City local, I winced at a recent invitation from The Office of Orientation and Transition to attend a Parent & Family Welcome BBQ for my daughter’s incoming class. 

“Dinner will be catered by a local favorite, Red Robin,” it read.

Red Robin is neither local, nor a local favorite. There’s 499 Red Robin restaurants in 421 cities throughout the USA plus another dozen in Canada — meaning out of state students have most likely eaten there too, so the joint isn’t a local favorite of theirs, either.

The assertion of cookie cutter fried burgers and bottomless fries being locally preferred to our myriad of local food trucks, cafés and restaurants is a false one. As importantly, the unwittingly fallacious statement portrays us as provincial rubes who lack culinary taste and sensibility.

In the future, I urge The Office of Orientation and Transition to desist fraternizing chains for U events intended to highlight our uniqueness. And if the decision is made to continue doing so? I beg administrators: Do not advertise the poor decision or implicate us locals.