Marigold Nugent
A QR code near Flat Top Grill and Rowdy's in the University Center (UC) advertises CMU's new Grubhub partnership. Students can speed up on-campus dining by ordering ahead on the app.
Long lines have plagued campus dining locations over the past year as CMU welcomed its two largest freshman classes in history. Dining services hopes to reduce the wait by introducing Grubhub mobile ordering.
Junior biological sciences student William Schraeder used Grubhub to place an order for lunch.
“That’s the whole reason why I did it, is there was a line for Chick-Fil-A, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna try to avoid the line order ahead,’” said Schraeder.
Schraeder says that using Grubhub helps him get his order faster in the busy period between classes.
“I mean, if I’m on the run, if I need to, like, you know, grab something quicker or do something, you know, everything’s like running. You’re running around on campus, everybody is,” said Schraeder. “But if it helps us, like, grab something and go and get to our classes and actually get something to eat too.”
CMU already had a mobile ordering platform, Order Ahead, but this platform didn’t include Chick-Fil-A. According to Marketing Manager of Dining Services Allison Vegas, the desire to include Chick-Fil-A played a big role in the decision to partner with Grubhub.
“We’re always trying to think innovatively about how we can improve things and the main reason we went with Grubhub is because we can use that with Chick-Fil-A and we couldn’t use that with the Order Ahead platform,” said Vegas.
Grubhub Manager of Client Success Christy Nichols is looking forward to the partnership with CMU.
“We’re excited to partner with Colorado Mesa University to bring Grubhub’s mobile ordering technology to campus for the first time,” said Nichols. “It’s great to see students and faculty already embracing it and experiencing how much easier and more convenient campus dining can be as we start the school year.”
In addition to a mobile app, there are three kiosks students can place orders from. Two are located in the University Center and one in the library.
“So, we’ve just been standing in line, like when there’s big, long lines at Qdoba or Einstein’s or Chick-Fil-A, and just telling people, ‘Hey, you can go to the kiosk and skip the line,’” said Vegas. “I think people just don’t know what those kiosks are for, so we’re just working towards making them more visible.”
Grubhub on campus can only be used to place pickup orders, as delivery is not available.
“Yeah, we don’t do delivery here mainly because all the doors are locked, so we’d have to have people with special access do that and we’d have to hire, you know, just specifically for that, so it’s pickup only, but the idea is that you can just skip the line,” said Vegas.
Right now, only Qdoba, Einstein’s and Chick-Fil-A are on the app. Starbucks has its own mobile ordering app that was launched last year. Vegas says that dining services hopes to add them to Grubhub next year.
Vegas also hopes to add places like Flat Top Grill and the Scramble at CMU tech, though these locations create more difficulty since they do not have preset menus.
“As far as Chick-Fil-A, Qdoba, and Einstein’s, their menus are already preset, and we can just load them on there. With places like Flat Top Grill, we’d have to put in each individual item ourselves,” said Vegas.
Vegas emphasizes that meal transfers and MAVMoney can be used on the Grubhub app. If the app is downloaded from one of the QR codes around campus, it prompts users to add their MavCards and connect their account.
“We do take MAVmoney too, and you can use any form of payment; it’s just like going up to the register. When you go into the app, you can either select the regular menu or the meal transfer menu. The meal transfer menu is only set to be open when the meal transfers are available to students,” said Vegas.
She notes that the long lines that form are mostly due to meal transfers, and hopes the app can make students’ lives more convenient.
“Right now, the goal is to give students a better option, like a faster option to help their lives be a little more easy,” said Vegas.
Dining services is holding a raffle to win a Trek e-bike and AirPods when students download the app. They also have many other promotions, like $2 Tuesdays, where every Tuesday there is a $2 discount on mobile orders.