Mess Hall, Chow Hall, or Dining Facility. What do we call it??

I guess being in the Transportation Corps and being on several different types of bases....I've called it all three...including the galley when I was aboard some Fast Sealift vessels

Chow hall or galley!

Chow Hall while on land Galley while on ship.

Built two recently, was told on more than one occasion by the logistics chief that they are "Dining Facilities". In my youth they were "Mess Halls" and to us young-uns the choke and puke. The new style mess halls are amazing with all the new equipment but are very expensive to build.

Speaking only from USAF perspective, "DFAC" or "Dining Facility" might be the more formally accurate and current name to use. However, I always called it the "chow hall" throughout my career, which i suppose can be considered an informal term and not necessarily a formal name. But if I recall, it really was a formal name in the past. Most others I worked with at the time I retired also still called it chow hall. "Mess Hall" vs "Chow Hall" sounds more like a Marine arguing with an airman over what to call the same place, to me. I say who really cares what it's called so long as you both know what is being talked about.

I was TACP assigned to the Army at Ft. Polk. My first experience with going to the "chow hall" was quite memorable. I wanted potatoes and then I asked for mac-n-cheese; I was loudly informed that I already had a starch on my plate and to move on down the line. I mumbled, it's not like this in the AF; another loud response. Shortly afterwards I was on separate rations lol. Chow Hall it is for me.

Each branch has its own lexicon, just like any nation has its own language. Accept the differences without judgement.. OP, ask that "someone" if they believe the Chinese are just as wrong for calling a red flower "méiguī", while we call that same red flower "rose"... it's following that "someone"'s logic that all jargon should be that "someone"'s jargon...

It doesn't matter what you call it. a rose is still a rose, regardless of the name. If I go there to eat and I am served food, I'm happy.

I have been out of the military for a long time but when I was in the Coast Guard, 1970 to 1974, we went to the "galley" to eat "chow".

Its a chow hall