A mobile food delivery app has made its way to Oakland University’s campus, making it safe and convenient for students and staff to chow down.

Boost is a mobile app which gives students and staff the ability to avoid the line at their favorite eatery on campus by pre ordering. The use of Boost on campus comes from the app being able to accommodate those of the campus community effectively, the trend of mobile food apps like Doordash and Uber Eats and the current social distancing brought on by COVID-19.

“We felt it was an appropriate time to initiate such a program as a convenience to our guests,” said Patrick Strzyinski, Chartwells’ director of operations. “Diners in general, appreciate options, this one greater opportunity for them to have a different experience on campus.” 

Once the app is downloaded to a device, students can create an account, select Oakland University as a preferred location and then they will be prompted to add a payment option.

Students currently can not use their meal plans to pay for food from the app because of security reasons.

“​We have been working with the university and Boost since day one to make meal plan usage an option,” Strzyinski said. “It boils down to the security of data for our students. There are some configuration concerns and unless we know that all data is secure, we don’t want to move forward.”

According to Stryzinski, once the security issues are resolved, the use of meal plans on the app will be implemented.

Food also can’t be delivered, but that depends on the popularity of the app. There is also another possibility that students will be able to deliver, but there will be precautions for the safety of students.

“That is definitely a possibility,” Strzyinski said. “The students would most likely have to be employed by Chartwells though. Also, we would have to restrict the areas we could deliver for security and safety purposes. For example, if someone were to be delivering to a residence hall, we would restrict them to delivering to the lobby areas only.”

The app has been popular within the campus community since the university adopted this new way to dine.

“Our guests that have used the app truly appreciate its convenience,” Strzyinski said.

Students who haven’t had the opportunity to try the app out are still excited to use it in the future.

“I went to use to use it when it first came out, but it had to be tweaked,” junior Kaylee Hall said. “I never used it once it was fully up and running, but I plan to use it in the future.”

It is limited on where you can order on campus, but there are some campus favorites on the list like Panda Express, Plum Market, Subway, The Halal Shack, The Hive and Frankies. There is the mention of expanding to more places on campus, but it depends on the experiences of the campus community.

“The more our guests take advantage of this great opportunity, the better chance we have of expanding our services as well how we can serve the campus community,” Strzyinski said.

Use Boost to skip the line by downloading from the Apple app store or Google Play.