Everything You Need To Know About Good Uncle’s Student Meal Plans
Over the past few months, Good Uncle, a food delivery startup here in Syracuse, has seemingly taken over campus. Next year, the company is slated to release a meal plan to students with options designed for both on-campus and off-campus customers. Jerk spoke to Good Uncle’s founder, Wiley Cerilli, and here’s what he had to say about the program.
Jerk: How will the meal plan work?
Cerilli: We are partnering with some more restaurant brands, which we’ll be announcing this summer, to include things like meatball subs, pastas, a whole new line of healthy food, and some more vegetarian dishes. We’ll be offering a larger, rotating menu for meal plan users only. Regular users will get our standard menu and the meal plan users will have access to all these exclusive dishes from other restaurants that we’re partnering with, doing a similar kind of thing that we do with our existing brands.
From a student’s perspective, it’s a way of saving some money, because it’s a lot cheaper than the Syracuse meal program. It’s a way for them to get better, healthier food delivered to them whenever and wherever they want. We deliver to the academic buildings, off-campus, to people’s houses starting in the fall, to all the dorms, to the fraternities, and we also deliver whenever, starting off at 8 or 9 in the morning until 3 a.m.
The “points,” per se, don’t expire. Some of these meal plans expire on a weekly basis, but ours will not, so the dollars in your account will roll over from week to week so that you can use it whenever you want. The idea is not to replace Syracuse meal plans; it’s more meant to be a complement to it, but a third of the people that have signed up so far are not on a Syracuse meal program. Users on the meal program get 10 or more percent off every single one of their orders.
Jerk: What has student interest been like so far?
Cerilli: It’s been pretty incredible. People want variety; people want really good restaurants, and saving money is also really nice. There have been a couple hundred signups already. It’s less of a sale and more of like, “Well, why wouldn’t I do this?” That’s been really nice.
Jerk: Do you see the meal plan expanding in the future?
Cerilli: The most important thing for us is making sure that we will deliver a certain quality of food and prioritize those meal plan users. There are limited spots for it, but once we understand how to manage the back end, we will expand it. We’ll be offering some additional spots this summer, but there’s still some time left now.
Jerk: How does your meal plan stack up against competitors, like the Off-Campus Meal Plan and Syracuse dining?
Cerilli: I’m not really familiar with the Off-Campus Meal Plan, but only a couple of students have brought it up to me. As I understand it, it’s sort of a meal plan for some local restaurants. The benefit of Good Uncle is that we have all of these great restaurants that we’re going to be bringing up from New York City, so it’s a great program with some of the city’s best.
Compared with the Syracuse meal program, ours would be saving students a lot of money, delivering them whatever they want, and offering better food and healthier selections.
Good Uncle certainly has high hopes for their future in Syracuse and beyond. Besides this program, they also plan to expand to more campuses and will be offering plans specifically for fraternity and sorority houses. They’re a favorite among many on campus, but it’s unclear how the meal plan will work out yet, especially when it competes with SU dining. Next year will be the true test of the startup. To sign up for one of the remaining meal plan spots, visit Good Uncle’s site.