Before the start of the fall semester, students were notified that there would be a transition in the campus food ordering and pick-up platform. Dining Sidekick would be replaced by GrubHub. Although we were initially promised that this change would improve our dining experience, it has actually created more troubles. 

 One issue with this transition is that both students and campus dining employees are being forced to switch from a platform they were familiar with to a platform that is unfamiliar. Students and staff alike have had to learn and get accustomed to an all-new user interface.

 For some students, becoming accustomed to a new platform has created a damper on their dining experience. Learning how to order on an app that is unfamiliar creates setbacks in the ordering process. For others, uncertainty about how to use the app has discouraged them from ordering food on campus whatsoever. 

 Dining staff also had to overcome obstacles and uncertainties that come with the changes to a new dining platform. For our on-campus Starbucks, for example, this change meant they now had to become accustomed to simultaneously serving in-person customers while also attending to the orders that come through the GrubHub app when they previously only had to take in-person orders.

 Outside of the hurdles that come with learning how to use a new platform, there have been promises that have been left unfulfilled. In the initial email regarding this change, students were promised that GrubHub would offer a seamless ordering process, real-time order tracking, and reliable services. These statements have not been entirely true thus far. 

The ordering process has not been seamless for all students. Some students have reported that the user-interface is less visually appealing and more complex than Dining Sidekick, making ordering more complicated in some instances. Sometimes, students are unable to order what they want, such as a venti drink from Starbucks, for example, as it is not listed as an option on the app. A reportedly inconvenient and less-intuitive ordering system may also make it more difficult for first-year students to become accustomed to ordering and picking up food on campus.

Regarding real-time order tracking, students have stated that the estimated order times have not been accurate. On Dining Sidekick, students would receive a notification when their order was ready. When they received this notification, their order was, in fact, ready. On GrubHub, some have stated that they no longer receive pop-up notifications when their order was ready, or in other instances, they would receive a notification when their order may not actually be ready yet. 

We were also promised that GrubHub would be a reliable, hassle-free service, however, this too has not entirely been the case. Within the first week of school, students had issues ordering from on-campus dining locations such as Burgers + Fries and Greens to Go. Although these issues have since been addressed, they still caused an inconvenience during a time students already had other things to adapt to, such as class schedules and living situations.

Going forward, hopefully GrubHub becomes commonplace as Dining Sidekick had been, but that has yet to become a reality for some students. Ordering and picking up food should not be an inconvenience.