<p>Has anyone seen the new option at Munchcard.com? It is like a meal ticket but you use it on many restaurants on Thayer Street. You can buy meal credits or points. The organizers are 4 Brown students.</p>
<p>I’ve heard about it and, but the MunchCard meals for specific restaurants would have to be significantly cheaper to make it a better option than just adding money into a bank account and using a debit or credit card. I can only really see it as being for someone who won’t prepare any of their own meals, but doesn’t have to be on meal plan.</p>
<p>That’s true – there would have to be a discount or it’s just paying for your meals on Thayer. The website says restaurants will package things worth a meal credit, but I wonder how that would work as many of the restaurants charge much more that amount for a meal. So I guess the question is what will a meal credit buy you at various restaurants?</p>
<p>A company tried this and failed miserably, like five years ago. But, this looks like it might have more in the way of appreciable discounts.</p>
<p>I’m not going to get it until it’s worked for at least a semester. I just see too many issues with the idea. Anyway, I don’t buy that much food on Thayer - usually just snacks.</p>
<p>yeah, as mgcsinc mentioned, there was the “off campus meal plan” a few years back that no one bought into. A couple years ago, there was 20/20, which I believe was that you paid $20 at some interval and then got 20% off all purchases at participating restaurants (was basically only worth it if you literally only ate at the participating restaurants). Usually these things are a waste of money. They usually try to appeal to parents who want to make sure kids aren’t spending all their money on booze, but I guess let their kids convince them the Brown food is so awful they shouldn’t pay for meal plan. At least, this is the only type of person I could imagine actually buying these things.</p>
<p>As a disclaimer, I will say I’m part of MunchCard. That being said, I wanted to address some of the concerns you guys have raised.</p>
<p>chsowlflax17-- The majority of our restaurant partners offer a discount (most at 10% off). It seems that there is some confusion/lack of trust on this front, so we’ll post a restaurant-by-restaurant chart on the website soon. Also, it’s not necessarily intended to be a replacement for meal plan or cooking. Our smallest plan is only an average of 2 meals/week at these restaurants, so if you eat that often on Thayer, you’re already saving money by using MunchCard.</p>
<p>burry-- The reason we haven’t posted all our ‘prepackaged’ menus up is because we’re still finalizing them. As an example of what you might get, Bajas is offering a burrito (or taco, cheese steak, etc.) with chips and salsa or fries, and an ice cream cone for a meal.</p>
<p>mgcsinc and i<em>wanna</em>be_Brown-- Yes, OCMP tried this a few years back and it didn’t work. However, OCMP offered no discounts, and had far fewer restaurants on board. We’re hoping that the variety of restaurants on MunchCard and the fact that you save money relative to using cash, credit, or debit will make everyone happy.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest with you. We’re not trying to scam anyone or waste your money (but of course I would say that right?). We’re hoping for this to be an everybody wins program, which is why we’ve looked at a lot of the problems with the University meal plan and addressed them (e.g. rollover points/credits, meals being worth what you paid for them in points, 1 point = $1, etc.–which are not the case on the University’s meal plan). If you have other feedback, we’d be more than happy to address it.</p>
<p>^I’m genuinely impressed. Finding a random discussion of your start-up on the internet, correcting misimpressions, and doing so in an honest, articulate, and open way – that’s the sort of thing an entrepreneur is supposed to be able to do, but precious few can.</p>
<p>If you need any capital, let me know ;)</p>
<p>Brown '12 here. </p>
<p>I’m not part of Munchcard, but I do know one of the people who started it. They seem to have put a lot of work into getting this off the ground, and unlike OCMP (before my time) and 20-20, it isn’t just an EN90 project that they’re trying to monetize… They’ve basically gotten agreements from every decent restaurant on Thayer, and to be able to eat anywhere on Thayer for even 10% off every time is really good… I think you can save almost 20% if you buy a large plan along the lines of the 20/wk brown plan or flex 460 - I forget how much exactly. </p>
<p>I’m probably going to buy ~50 meals to start with in the fall. I’m off campus, and really like to cook, so I obviously don’t want to replace all my cooking. But, I’m going to be inconveniently far away to want to come back from a class to make lunch and go back in the afternoon. 50/semester is basically like 3 days a week of lunch… I probably ate 50 times on thayer this semester and I’m on the full meal plan… </p>
<p>I’ve been on brown meal plan for 3 years - it’s been pretty good and I think bds does a really good job overall. They just get a little old after a while. It will be nice to have a pretty cost effective alternative, since Brown’s low-tier meal plans are literally a rip-off. There is NO way anything could be as big a rip-off as brown’s “off campus” plan or even the like 7 or 10/wk plans. You end up paying like 15 bucks a meal?? I think a lot of parents will support it just because its cheaper. </p>
<p>I wanna hear how the summer plan goes for people - unless it turns out really bad for some reason I’m excited to sign up in the fall - I’ll be away for the summer though.</p>
<p>billman1020, did they change the off campus plan? I remember when I was at Brown, that was actually THE BEST option the university had in terms of price effectiveness. It was even better than 20 meals/week. It was just that you had to be off campus to buy it, and you had to actually use it (i.e. eat meals frequently on campus)</p>
<p>In terms of cost/meal, off-campus is the worst (unless you add on a bunch of points. The BDH did an article about it, but I’m not in the mood to look it up right now).</p>
<p>It is more like an editorial, but here it is:
[</a>" + artTitle.replace(“-”,“”) + " - " + “The Brown Daily Herald” + "](<a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/editorial-meal-plan-math-1.2339530]”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/editorial-meal-plan-math-1.2339530)</p>
<p>not including points is a stupid way to think about the plan (they are part of it, and given that you cant use credits at blue room or campus market, its not fair to ignore them), but I guess I can’t argue with the math that even with points it’s a bad deal…</p>
<p>The only way points are superior over real money (or declining balance) is that you can use 6.15 points for a dining hall meal as opposed to the more expensive price (depending on meal) with cash/db. Thus the best way for people on meal plans to spend their points is actually on dining hall meals. But this is very often not the case, as I think most people spend their points in places that don’t take meal credits. When you are running low (or are expecting to run low), you should always use your plan (credits or points) on dining hall meals, and pay for the other stuff with cash/db instead.</p>
<p>^Except if you’re going to pay with cash/db, you might as well pay less for better food off campus.</p>
<p>^except for spicy withs. Nothing on thayer compares to that.</p>
<p>^My friends and I, at the end of any fun night: “WE’RE GOING TO JOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!”</p>
<p>One time, I had three spicy withs (or should that be ‘spicys with’? :P) in one sitting.</p>
<p>Jo’s = the end to every great night of my freshman year. True story :D.</p>