Chad E.

Face the facts - if you have to serve Jury Duty (or Jury Service, as they are trying to rebrand it), at best you are going to be there for a day. If you get unlucky, you might be chosen to serve for multiple days. But because they don't want to airports to have all the fun, you also get to go through a metal detector, often even taking off your shoes! So you go through all this process and the good news is that you get three breaks - one in the morning, one in the afternoon and a monster of a lunch break (roughly 12:30 until 2:00pm). The morning and afternoon breaks aren't long enough to even think about heading out past the checkpoint, and the lunch break is just long enough to make it worthwhile. So what do you do? Check out the Courthouse Cafe. In the lobby of the courthouse, almost hidden along the wall, is a door that opens into a cafeteria-style line where you can purchase hot food and some items from a cooler. They even give you a discount as a juror. Of course, they don't tell you that they can't give you a discount on pre-packaged items (like chips or drinks) and they don't even give you discounts on fountain beverages. So they only give you discounts on selections from the hot bar, which aren't all that great. But you don't pay tax - and it is better than the vending machines upstairs. Unfortunately, some of the drinks run out (notably the sweet tea), so you better choose wisely. Apparently they also have wifi, but you usually don't have a really long time to stay - you're probably better off grabbing something and heading back upstairs to the jury holding area to resume your "service".