Tank Dining Co-Op

(Background: A cooperative is a collective space where students cook and clean together. Picture a space of 40-100 students where each member has an assigned “cook” or “crew” (cleaning) shift and make homemade food for each other.

There are six cooperatives at Oberlin:

1. Pyle Inn Co-Op, dining only
2. Harkness House, dining and housing co-op
3. Keep Cottage, dining and housing co-op
4. Tank, dining and housing co-op
5. TWC, Third World Co-op, dining safer-space for students of color
6. Brown Bag Co-Op, co-op grocery store

Read more at osca.coop.)

I am in Tank Co-Op. I like to think of it as the “older sister” of co-ops. Hark is young and rebellious, full of activities like mud wrestling or group showers. Pyle is the younger sister, tame and bright-eyed, perfect for newer members of the co-op. 

But Tank is different. Tank is the large orphanage-turned-house at the bottom of the hill, beautiful and scary. On warmer days, members sprawl on the spacious lawn, kicking a soccer ball or lying beneath one of the trees. When it rains, everyone huddles inside. Someone plays piano. Someone else reads a book aloud. 

Tank’s culture is complicated. Some call it cliquey. There’s large friend groups of fashionably-dressed students that feel impossible to penetrate. There’s a lot of upperclassmen students. Everyone fights to be “head cook,” where you organize and lead the making of each meal with three students on cook shift. In Tank, students care deeply about things. 

I’ve been in Tank since last semester. Last week, someone asked my friend Liam what it was like being in Tank. Did he make more friends? Was it socially exhausting, always eating with different people every day?

“It’s a lot like freshman year, actually,” he said. “You make, like, thirty friends immediately, and you eat meals with them every day.”

I couldn’t help but agree. In a space like this, where I don’t have any of my close friends, I am forced to sit by people I don’t know. I find we don’t lose ourselves in small talk, conversations about the weather, or icebreakers. Instead, we talk about our weekends, drinking a bottle of wine and then trying to finish an essay, being so behind on a thesis, or breaking up with a situationship. In Tank, sitting among people I don’t know very well, I learn the intimate and nuanced details of their lives over spaghetti or, say, salad. 

There’s the food, of course. Tank has the best food of any co-op, or that’s what I think. Tonight for dinner we had lentils, flatbread, kale salad, yogurt sauce, and lemonade. There were molasses chocolate chip cookies that Lucy made last night, leftover focaccia from lunch. I love the food in Tank. It’s very healthy, and it makes me happy how much effort the head cooks put into the food, just so the people eating it will enjoy it.

We have events too. Some popular ones are Pig Roast, Porchella (Coachella on Tank’s porch), or folk music nights. Right now, we are reading aloud a book that a townie wrote. It’s called Taleigh the Everlasting: A Journey To Remember, by Christopher Micheal Lesesne. There’s a sense of community here, camaraderie in shared meals and experiences.

I love Tank. I love the long bike ride to the house, sitting down with my meal, and watching people throw a frisbee around. I love cooking a good meal like chocolate chip pancakes or tofu scramble, and I love baking vegan treats for the co-op (this is my role in the co-op, instead of being a head cook or on a crew shift). I love listening to people play piano. I bring my non-Tank friends here sometimes, and I enjoy watching their social struggle as they meet so many different people.

But words don’t say enough. I’ve attached a few pictures of my time in Tank recently. If this article enticed you, stop by for a meal sometime! I’ll be here. (: