The students behind GrilleMe, Middlebury’s late-night Grille delivery service, are reducing delivery wait time, establishing consistent year-long hours of operation and expanding their business to four new colleges.
“There’s a huge dormant demand for Grille delivery, so we’re trying to make it a little more consistent,” said Cameron Dewey ’18, who co-founded GrilleMe last year.
Dewey, alongside co-founders Andrew Cadienhead ’18 and Andrew Jung ’17, will try to capitalize on the desire for late night food by maintaining their delivery service throughout the year. “There’s a huge dormant demand for Grille delivery, so we’re trying to make it a little more consistent,” Dewey said.
Their main goal for this school year is to expedite deliveries and to decrease customers’ waiting time by hiring employees who can deliver food by car instead of on foot.
In addition to making their service faster, Dewey and Cadienhead have revamped their mobile website, grilleme.com, for an easier user experience. “It’s completely new,” Dewey said. “We spent a lot of time getting that up to speed.”
GrilleMe’s efforts to expedite service and improve customers’ online experiences were in response to complaints the founders received last year.
“I think the first year was pretty choppy just because there are so many things you can’t predict when you first start up,” Cadienhead said.
As the organization launches their improved service, they hope to continue to improve their business.
“We are very open to people telling us their complaints about the service,” Dewey said.
While Cadienhead directs GrilleMe’s operations at Middlebury, Dewey will manage the intercollegiate expansion of UniDel, the official company that he, Cadienhead and Jung have founded. This year, UniDel will begin facilitating food delivery services at Colby, Amherst, Wesleyan, and Washington and Lee.
“It’s basically the same exact company at each different school,” Dewey said. “We’re giving them the web platform, we’re giving them our marketing materials, and we’re giving them guidance because in some of the schools you need to fill out an application to run a student business.”
GrilleMe has worked at Middlebury, but it is unclear whether UniDel’s four new delivery services will be profitable.
“The risk is on us,” said Cadienhead. “We pay [employees] a minimum salary no matter what just to incentivize work, even when they’re not seeing results right away.”
Still, if the fledgling businesses at the other colleges are able to cooperate effectively with food services, they should make enough money to be self-sustaining and boost business for the restaurants whose food they deliver.
“Before [GrilleMe] came along, the Grille was doing fine, but we’ve increased their revenue a lot. We account for between a third and half of their business now,” Dewey said. “At the end of the day, we help them as much as they help us, so we want to optimize that as much as we can.”
GrilleMe operates from 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, from 8:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, and from 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
