So you can't hang like your college days, but you could use a youthful jolt in your Saturday night. May we recommend Case Western Reserve University? Probably not your first choice, but thanks to the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and new restaurants such as Trentina, Crop Kitchen and Ninja City, University Circle is hopping. The CWRU campus has followed suit by jazzing things up with its new Tinkham Veale University Center. It's a student center, but it's got a lot to offer any visitor. If you go, just remember to call it "Tink," like the kids do.
The Food: Case has stuffed Tink full of eateries that, unlike their nearby bougie cousins, won't massacre your wallet. Michelson and Morley, a beautiful sit-down spot, is named after the pair that measured the speed of light on campus. But the real star is Melt University, an express lane to Matt Fish's deliciously sloppy grilled cheese creations, such as a heap of pulled pork, named the Case Western BBQ.
The Look: Built with $50 million in donations, Tink has become the centerpiece for a campus that was without one. Occupying a skinny sliver of land, its crisp angles and glassy facade make it a bright counterpoint to the brick-and-silver chaos of the Frank Gehry-designed Peter B. Lewis Building and MOCA's hulking prism. Your already good University Circle architecture tour just got better.
The Tech: Tink's enormous, two-story video screens fill the space with overstimulating interaction. The bottom screen, similar to the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gallery One, displays touch-sensitive bits of campus news. You can get sweaty by flailing at the motion-activated games or get couchy with the rotating network newscasts. It's the Big Mac of entertainment: massively intimidating yet drool-inducing.
