Uber Eats & DoorDash vs. LA School Cafeteria Food - Guess Who’s Winning?

PixabayPhoto bySurprising_Shots

LA School cafeterias -- loud, busy, barely controlled chaos - serving up the best food money can buy.

No, not really.

Most cafeterias in practice are extensions of fast-food restaurants down the road. Pizza, Tacos, hot dogs, and an assortment of mac & cheese, trucked in frozen and served up hot to students throughout the day.

But not for everyone.

In one school district on the northern border of Los Angeles County, school administrators are having to set new rules and enforced boundaries to stem the flow of DoorDash and Grubhub drivers lining up to drop off lunch deliveries of custom pizzas, gourmet hamburgers and shish kebab from eateries down the street.

Students and drivers, in a choreographed dance throughout midday are exchanging thank yous for packaged meals delivered hot and on time. All the while creating mini traffic jams and worrisome situations outside the schools as scores of cars swoop in and out bringing alternative dining to junior high and high school students alike.

Sounds wonderful.

Sound expensive.

So, who exactly is paying for all of this?

Not the schools.

The motivation is clear, pizza and burgers can only take you so far, and bringing lunch - right, you can just imagine all the 12 and 13-year-olds holding brown paper bags with sandwiches made by dad before he left for work that morning.

Do they even sell brown paper bags anymore?

But ordering and payment are simple and easy. Download the App. Enter in credit card information, neatly encrypted. Create a contact for DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, Postmates, and your restaurant favs, and voila - no more mac & cheese.

Minutes before math ends at 11:30, quietly order your Chicken Lula & hummus, set the time for delivery, and click - all done, while copying tonight’s homework assignment off the blackboard.

Then join your fellow students outside.

Shares menu choices, recent texts, and videos. Then watch as the drivers swoop in like Hogwarts owls dropping off their packages.

When done sit down and enjoy a cobb salad with a side of grilled chicken and a thin slice of cheesecake, all courtesy of your local Cheesecake Factory and you’re good for the day.

Tomorrow, repeat. Order the roast beef sandwich from the new deli down the street, with some fries and the school cafeteria quickly becomes a much quieter place where students go to catch up on homework, exchange ideas and prepare for the rest of their classes.

Probably not.

But what is all this easy living costing the students?

Nothing. Unless they have trust funds backing up their spending habits.

Keep in mind that an average lunch will run about $15. Added to them are restaurant delivery fees, DoorDash surcharge to pay the Dashers, tax, tips, and there you have it - roughly $20 or so per day.

Unless it’s all-you-can-eat Taco Tuesday, then the cafeteria gets your business.

Otherwise, it’s Mom and Dad footing the bill. Adding an extra $100 to $200 to their monthly budgets so that their children can have a varied diet courtesy of the latest startups.

Make sense?

Not sure.

Better choices sure. Plus, mac & cheese and pizza can add calories that are hard to burn off. Texting 3-4 hours a day can only burn off so much. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

While the concept and freedom of choice seem reasonable enough, the economics don’t work - not for the average family.

Not for a student’s understanding of budgets either.

It also avoids the real problem and begs the question - why isn’t the cafeteria food good enough to eat in?

The occasional treat being delivered is fun and why not. But technology is once again asked to alleviate a problem that isn’t one.

Picking up our own food isn’t bad - at least you’re not cooking it. But students having access to credit cards at 12 and 13 and deciding when to use them - there’s a larger problem being kicked down the road.