Among the many universal pains of being an underclassman, few are as annoying as the inability to have a car on campus. This restriction limits one’s ability to explore and travel; but more importantly, one’s capability to get food quickly that is inconveniently far away. As many of you probably know, there is a wide range of delivery service apps available that can get you what you want in a hurry. If you were unaware of this, welcome to the college campus of 2017, and prepare to be enlightened. For your dining pleasure, we’ve taken the liberty of doing some research and trying a handful of these services out ourselves so that you don’t have to be the Goldilocks of takeout apps.
Grubhub
Grubhub is more or less the OG takeout delivery service. It operates similarly and with much of the same functionality as UberEats, but it has been around since 2004. Other apps have risen in popularity, causing a bit of a plateau for Grubhub, however, it still has them all beat in clout and industry experience alone. If you don’t mind going through another brief registration, the experience shows. Advantages to Grubhub include both their acceptance of a wide range of payment options, as well as the ability to order your food in advance anywhere from two hours to four days.
UberEats
This one should sound familiar to you, and if it doesn’t you may be beyond our help. UberEats functions very similarly, and shares the same interface, as the non-eats version. The key difference here is that your food, rather than you, is the high priority passenger. You can enter your drop-off address, place your order at any one of hundreds of local restaurants, and watch as the progress is made towards your delivery. All charges are handled within the app and all you need to do is pick up your meal when it arrives. The key advantage to UberEats is that it is the sister app to the original, meaning that if you have an account and card already on file, you will not have to go through any additional registration.
Caviar
Very similar to UberEats and Grubhub, Caviar is another delivery service that offers a free mobile app. It doesn’t have quite the range of restaurants of UberEats, or the street cred and experience of Grubhub, but it claims to deliver to its customers “no matter where they are”. We did not test this statement, but if you’re ever in a pinch and the other two are unavailable in your location, give it a shot and test their claim. Another big advantage that Caviar has is that it specializes in group orders for businesses or gatherings, so it follows that it would be more equipped and capable of handling larger orders.
GoPuff
If you want a full on takeout meal, this might not be the app for you. However, what GoPuff doesn’t fully cover in terms of food, it more than makes up for with its capability to deliver items from almost any store. It heralds itself as a delivery service “for millennials, by millennials”, and strongly emphasizes that its primary objective is convenience. Whether it’s a midnight snack you’re craving when the pod is closed, or you need school supplies and the bookstore seems a bit pricey, GoPuff has you covered. The items they offer range anywhere from prepared snacks to beverages, both alcoholic and nonalcholic, electronics, household necessities, and more. Obviously, the advantage here is that, while you are unable to order from restaurants, you can order from almost anywhere else.
Postmates
Finally, we get to the jack-of-all-trades app of the group. Postmates combines the convenience and “any store” aspect of GoPuff, with the restaurant takeout function of the others, offering the delivery of “anything from any store or restaurant”. The free app connects customers with local couriers, through whom you place your order and simply wait for them to arrive. They also offer this with a flat delivery fee of $4, which is very modest considering the powerful service that they perform.
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the resources at your fingertips that put all food and items within your reach, whether you have a car on campus or not. Again, these were our findings regarding the above services, but we highly recommend that you try a couple of them for yourself and see which one is the best fit for you.
