University of Wisconsin tries to keep delivery in-house

Joie Schoonover, director of dining and culinary services at University of Wisconsin in Madison, was surprised that her school earned the third spot on GrubHub’s list of colleges with highest volumes of restaurant deliveries during finals week.

Campus dining offers its own delivery, and facilities remain open as late as midnight for late-night crammers. It’s the students who live off-campus who might be turning to Domino’s and the like, she says.

Certainly the flow of business to outside deliverers hasn’t hurt her business, Schoonover says. Students who live on-campus can have pizza and wings delivered to their dorm rooms from Capital City Pizza Company, a business that has grown since chicken wings were added as an option about a year ago.  About 700 deliveries were made from the Gordon Avenue Market location during the week ending April 25, 2015, compared with 330 deliveries for the same week in 2014, according to Schoonover. About 450 to 500 delivery orders are usually fielded by the pizzeria in a typical week.

She attributes the recent upswing to the approach of finals and the late-night studying they trigger. “I’m sure [GrubHub] has some affect, I’m sure students do order from there, “ said Schoonover, “but we offer things so that [the students] don’t have to.”

During finals week, dining services also offers a late night breakfast special, where faculty and staff assist in serving students.

“Our patron counts are holding consistent,” she says.