Marywood’s dining gets an upgrade this year through a new partnership with Grubhub.

Now coined as STACK’D, Dining Services informed students that they can order ahead of time from all dining locations through Grubhub, replacing Boost as the primary ordering-ahead app.

This transition from Boost to Grubhub came from both negative student response and the workers’ negative experiences with the order-ahead process. Chef Robert Misko, Marywood’s executive director of dining services, explains, “Everyone pretty much agreed it was a nightmare…It was a system that we couldn’t change anything and we just saw more and more errors.”

According to Chef Rob, the decision to switch to Grubhub has been in the making for a few years.

“The goal was that Grubhub would come in and eliminate all the errors Boost had,” he said. “In different colleges, they say the first two weeks are technically a nightmare but then after that it’s clear sailing and we’re starting to see that. I also think it’s the way of life and the generation we’re in, everybody’s on their phones. I think it’s much smoother.”

Through this new change, the biggest change has been the walk-in system at Naz. In the past, students were able to walk in and swipe their card; however, the system has been entirely digitalized for students with meal plans.

The decision to digitalize swiping in was to eliminate the lines out of the dining hall.

Misko states, “Sometimes we’d see lines out the door. Maybe a card didn’t work or they were doing it the wrong way, and sometimes long groups would hold up the lines.”

According to Misko, the goal is just to swipe through the app from anywhere on campus before you get to the dining hall and walk right in.

In addition, the dining hall has gone entirely cashless. Misko reported that rarely any students used cash to pay.

“Especially in the dining hall, we rarely see cash. Even people who come off of the street and pay the door price, they pay through card,” he said.

He believes that through Grubhub, paying out of pocket has also become easier, especially as there were days no students paid with cash.

In addition to this new ordering system, the dining locations across campus have been upgraded. The main updates have been to the Learning Commons. These introductions include Chop’d & CO, a made-to-order salad and wrap station; Build-A-Bowl, an Acai bowl and fruit juice station; along with Meatopia, the BBQ station.

“Food is a very huge decision, whether people will admit it or not when deciding on schools, so to me it’s important that number one we have offerings for the students,” he said.

These new “brands” in the Learning Commons have been generally positive along with what Misko has heard about the response to Grubhub.

“I think everybody’s been pretty good,” he said. “I appreciate everyone’s patience with technological flaws, along with orientation leaders who helped during the week.”

Misko encourages returning students who may have difficulties with the new app to be patient through the two-week adjustment period.

“Once we’re open minded and do the new way, that becomes second nature… I think in just one more week, it’s just going to be the way of life,” Misko said.

As the semester begins, students are still adjusting to Grubhub and these new locations. Throughout the school year, we will continue updating on students’ opinions along with any other changes to the dining services.

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