Terrace F. Club is one of the ten current eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Terrace was founded in 1904 as the twelfth club at Princeton. It is located at 62 Washington Road, making it the only one of Princeton's current eating clubs that is not on Prospect Avenue.
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Terrace is one of the five clubs to use a nonselective lottery "sign-in" system to determine membership, as opposed to the selective bicker system of the other five clubs. Along with Campus, Colonial, and Cloister, Terrace switched from bicker to the sign-in system during the politically turbulent 1960s[1]. Terrace was one of the first of the clubs to accept Jewish, African-American, and female members, and today is considered on campus to be the most "alternative," politically liberal eating club. Often, members are stereotyped according to this reputation, but the actual membership is very diverse in terms of background, sense of style, and academic interests. From 2000 to 2008, Terrace has been a popular choice for sophomores, filling all of its membership slots either during first round sign-in[2][3][4] or by the end of the second round.
Terrace's motto is "Food=Love," and has been since the mid-eighties. The food is served cafeteria-style and is famous for being more "vegetarian friendly" than other clubs. Members of Terrace often refer to the club as "TFC" or "Terrace F. Club". These monikers grew out of the nickname "Terrace Flaming Club"[5], which was coined after a fire of mysterious origin significantly damaged the club's building on December 14, 1987[6]. The fire also inspired the now-defunct motto, "Gas up, get wild, burn down, rebuild....Terrace: The Flammable Family." The meaning of the F has been expanded to include many other interpretations over the years.
From 1977 until 1984, while many of the sign-in clubs were faltering Terrace was kept alive by Chef Larry Frazer. As an attempt to attract new members Chef Frazer began cooking vegetarian meals. This was an entirely new concept at Princeton and is nowadays an assumed item on all of the Princeton menus. Students can thank Chef Frazer and Terrace Club for starting vegetarianism as an accepted alternative dining choice. Chef Frazer was actually married in Terrace Club in 1982 with the officers acting as attendants and guitarist extaordinaire Stanley Jordan as the musical performer. He was also an old friend of Chef Barton Rouse and when he decided to move to Campus Club he hired Barton to take his place.
Much of the reputation Terrace enjoys today grew out the leadership and love of its Chef, the late Barton Rouse, the creative force behind Terrace's parties and excellent food from the eightes to late nineties, when he died. Barton was the originator of the Food=Love motto[7], which is carried on today by Chef Olin Noren and sous-chef Ben Arfa and the Terrace kitchen crew. Terrace is often referred to by club members as "the mother," "mother Terrace," or "the womb," and members often refer to themselves as "Terrans."
Weekend events at Terrace often include concerts of indie-scene bands from a variety of genres, including rock, hip-hop, salsa, jazz, and electronica. Unlike the other eating clubs, Terrace rarely hires DJs for dancing. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Terrace to have more nights of live music in a given weekend than all of the other nine clubs put together. Many notable artists and groups, including Yo La Tengo, GWAR, Elliott Smith, Run DMC, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Vampire Weekend, Girl Talk, GZA and Immortal Technique played at Terrace before they were nationally well-known. Terrace also hosts the Queer Radicals' annual Drag Ball in October or November.
As was then common practice for newly-founded eating clubs, when Terrace Club began in 1904, the members dined in a building on Olden Street known as "The Incubator". This small structure had previously been the original home of Cap & Gown, and had been relocated to Olden Street from Cap's current location. It served as a temporary home for many eating clubs while their own buildings were under construction or being renovated.
In 1906, the club relocated to the current Washington Road location, which was occupied by a house in the Colonial Revival style which had formerly belonged to faculty member John Grier Hibben. This building was remodeled by architect Frederick Stone in the 1920s to the current configuration with its Tudor-style exterior[8].
A tea party at Terrace in 1936 is credited[9] as the birthplace of the idea for the short-lived Veterans of Future Wars, an organization that satirized the acceleration of bonus payments to World War I veterans by demanding that its young members be similarly paid for the services they would render their country in conflicts to come.
In 1967, Terrace became the first club to abandon the Bicker process.[10] Terrace Club and Colonial Club were the first clubs to accept women following the University's decision to admit women in 1969.[11] In 2011, Terrace became the first club to offer membership to graduate students.[12]
Terrace members are supposed to insert the phrase "FOOD=LOVE" into either their Junior Project or their Senior thesis. Terrace members traditionally complete an "offering" upon joining the club as sophomores. The "offerings" usually involve creating minor acts of humorous mayhem around campus.
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