The beginning of the semester saw a new $1.50 charge for students placing delivery orders from any of the Rollins dining locations.
“At the very beginning [of the pandemic] there was not a delivery fee,” Director of Dining Services Cristina Cabanilla said. “However, we noticed many of the mobile orders were for a single product such as a can of soda or a bag of chips. The time that an associate took to make a delivery for a single item was delaying other orders like an actual meal for a student.”
Aside from deterring small orders and maintaining the delivery program, the fee was designed to help pay for the cost of the program. Cabanilla said that Dining Services spent $100,000 on delivery services during the Fall 2021 semester. This covered “six full-time employees, purchase of a golf cart, and additional associated costs like disposables.”
Dining Services also installed minimum order values that went into effect on Feb 7. For the Fox Lodge Café, the minimum charge is $5. For all other dining options (Cornell Café, Dave’s Boathouse, C-Store, or the Fox Lodge Grill), the minimum charge is $10.
Cabanilla explained that these minimums were created for two reasons. The first is cost management, since it costs more than $1.50 per order for packaging and delivery. Cabanilla said that the average cost of delivery is $4.50: 200 percent more than the fee that Rollins charges.
Cabanilla said the minimums were also meant to curtail “the practice of frivolous orders [small orders such as one can of soda].”
For students like Morgan Thompson (‘25), the minimum charges and delivery fees are both good changes. Thompson, who does not order delivery from Dining Services, believes that “the people who deliver the food should be paid fairly for their services… the delivery minimum helps that be possible.”
Thompson added that the delivery fee is “so cheap compared to any delivery app.”
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