Dining locations campus-wide are strengthening their defenses in preparation for the inevitable end-of-quarter onslaught of excess meal swipes. As students begin to realize they have gone under-budget on their meal plans, campus dining will see an exponential rise in customers, which places a strain on an already over-burdened institution.
Pizza at the Drake, one of Ohio State’s newest dining locations, has had fewer quarters to come up with an end-of-term battle plan. As OSU’s only campus dining location to offer delivery, the PAD faces a unique set of challenges.
Student manager Isaac Ruiz thinks the PAD is ready, though. Ruiz has worked at the PAD for a year, and has come to know the routine well.
ANDY GOTTESMAN/THE LANTERNMatt Zele, a freshman in business, carries out eight swipes worth of groceries, clearing his BuckID of swipes. Zele began the quarter with 150 swipes but went to Marketplace on Wednesday to use his leftovers.“At the end of the quarter, we get calls from students with as many as 50, 100 swipes left,” he said. For a manager facing students with up to 100 extra meal swipes and only two weeks left to spend them, Ruiz sounded remarkably calm. Even the student employee working the register beside him seemed unfazed.
One of the PAD’s defenses against high customer volume is its 10-swipe limit on all orders, except those made a day in advance. This means that the PAD might be filling 10-pizza delivery orders for each phone call they receive.
“Unlike a Dominos or Pizza Hut with a limited delivery area, we’re taking orders from all of campus,” Ruiz said.
The PAD does frequently get orders placed ahead of time that go over its 10-swipe limit. As he spoke about the end-of-quarter rush, Ruiz and his staff were preparing a 40-swipe order for delivery later that day.
In anticipation of the rush, the PAD – along with many other campus dining locations – tries to staff a few extra employees during the busiest times of day. Student managers and supervisors create a special finals week schedule to both accommodate employees’ exam schedules and have a few extra people on hand to help with big orders.
“We don’t mind taking all of these orders,” Ruiz said. Indeed, the PAD seems to have gotten its high volume of orders figured out. Ruiz himself witnessed the drop in average wait-time for delivery orders. Pizzas that might have taken two hours to arrive last year now take an average of 45-60 minutes, even during peak hours.
Ruiz admits that during finals week, the wait time can still spike up to two hours.
Overall, the PAD seems prepared to deal with the high number of orders from students with swipes to spend. Employees have already noticed a rise in order volume, and suspect it will only get worse over the next two weeks.
“We just hope we don’t get people using up their 50 swipes all on the last day,” Ruiz said.
Meagan Strub can be reached at [email protected].
