Boston University’s call-ahead bagged meal plan has gone high-tech, now allowing students to order ‘Rhetty-to-Go’ meals online.
In a few clicks, students can arrange for breakfast, lunch or dinner tailored to their preferences to be packed up and waiting for them at a dining hall nearby.
Director of Dining Services Joshua Hubbard said the online update to the program has been in place since mid-March. He said planning for and overcoming technological issues started months ago.
‘It came up this fall as a topic of conversation,’ Hubbard said. ‘We started developing it in early to mid-October. We tested it some over the middle of February.’
The idea to put the program online came from dining patrons’ recommendations, Hubbard said.
‘We got a number of comments from students,’ Hubbard said. ‘Especially to make the system more user friendly. It’s important to address the needs of all students.’
Hubbard said he thinks the improved convenience of the program will increase use of the program, which he called underutilized before the update.
‘The past program was useful in its ability to fulfill orders,’ Hubbard said. ‘We expect there to be a significant increase [in orders].’
Currently, the order form is on the dining services website and a student can fill it out and submit it in a matter of minutes. Orders still have to be in by 7 p.m. the night before a student is going to pick up his or her meal, but students are saved a trip to the dining hall. Payment for the meals remains the same students can choose to pay for the meal with convenience, dining points or meal points from their meal plans.
Michael Gilligan, Marketing Program Manager for dining services, explained the process the Dining Services team went through between October and Spring Break to get the system online.
‘It was a fairly complex software issue because there are so many variables to choose,’ Gilligan said. ‘It was translating a paper menu into an electronic format to fulfill orders and [do it] quickly.’
Orders are delivered via e-mail to one of the five dining halls on campus, where the director of the dining hall passes the orders along to the staff, Gilligan said.
Students’ response to the update has been positive so far, according to Gilligan.
‘The feedback we’re getting from students is that it’s great to have it online to order from their dorm room or the library or wherever they are,’ Gilligan said. ‘We think it will become a big part of the dining services’ offerings.’
The added convenience is a big plus for students with hectic schedules who still want to get a meal from their dining plans, he said.
Jason Trebino, a College of Communication junior, said he appreciates dining services’ efforts to cater to the students.
‘As someone who has a fairly busy schedule, I think it’s great that the dining halls are trying to fulfill students’ needs,’ Trebino said. ‘Instead of having to go down and fill out a form, ordering them online makes it a lot more convenient.’
Paula Yanosy, a COM sophomore with an off-campus job said she has often considered ordering a Rhetty-to-Go meal, but always forgets to grab an order form. Now that the order form is online, Yanosy said she will ‘definitely use them in the future.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
