Students Quarantining in Residence Halls Experience Meal Delivery Problems
Inconsistent delivery times, a lack of dietary need accommodations, and insufficient amounts of food are among common concerns.
Since mandatory quarantine in on-campus residence halls began, students have encountered an array of problems with the complimentary early dining service, including delivery delays, insufficient amounts or poor quality of food, and a lack of regard for dietary needs.
In multiple emails sent to students before and after move-in took place on Aug. 18 and 19, NYU indicated that free meals would be delivered daily during the two weeks when students would be restricted to their assigned rooms.
“NYU Dining will provide students with three complimentary boxed meals and a snack per day,” NYU’s webpage for quarantine dining says. “Meals will be delivered directly to residence rooms in the early morning, early afternoon and late afternoon.”
Though the webpage and emails expressed that all meals should arrive between 8:30 and 11 a.m., this has not been the case for many quarantining students, who have received meals at irregular times.
Students have taken to social media to express their concerns, including sophomore Lauren Bickle, who posted a viral TikTok in which she unboxed her first meal since moving into Broome St. Residential College on Tuesday.
Bickle said that the meal, which she received on Wednesday, Aug. 19, was delivered after Broome sent an email saying that food would be late that day.
“I called them yesterday at 1 p.m. because I hadn’t gotten breakfast or anything, and they kept saying it would be up soon but I didn’t get anything until 6 p.m.,” Bickle said.
Delivery has been inconsistent overall and has taken place at unusual times, according to Bickle. “And the food wasn’t great,” she said. “I didn’t eat it because it smelt like it had gone bad.”
“I also know they’ve been giving vegans and vegetarians meat and animal products,” Bickle added. Several students with vegan and vegetarian diets were sent steak and chicken on salads, as well as milk with breakfast.
Lafayette resident and junior Jamal, who asked to be referred to by only his first name, said that he was provided with a pork sandwich, which he couldn’t eat because he’s Muslim.
Students have also had trouble getting a timely and clear response from dorm and dining services regarding issues with meals.
Junior Laisa Garcia, an RA at University Hall, said that after being given only lunch on Wednesday, she had difficulties getting a response from dining services and her residence hall, who didn’t reply until the next morning.
Garcia said that her friends sent her food via Uber Eats because she had only received a salad that day. However, since it was past 8:30 p.m., it broke the dorm delivery policy communicated in emails from individual residence halls.
“When the food got to me, the RHRM (Residence Hall Resource Manager) was angry and they said that I was not allowed to do that again,” Garcia said via Twitter DMs.
Junior Jae Ortiz, who has faced delivery delays since moving into Brittany Hall, also had to turn to a food delivery app for their meal. On Wednesday, Ortiz received dinner at 11 p.m., but had already ordered food beforehand.
“I’m a low income student so I have been trying to manage off of the food they are giving us but it is simply not enough,” Ortiz said via Twitter DMs.
Ortiz added that many low income students are struggling, especially first-year students. They described sending some of their unemployment money to their mentee, who lives in Greenwich Hall, because he still hadn’t received a meal by 1 p.m. that day.
“Low-income students should not have to be redistributing the very little wealth they own to help out other students when they go to an institution with as large of an endowment as NYU has,” Ortiz said.
Freshman Ricardo Sheler, who also went viral on TikTok, expressed similar sentiments. “This is extremely subpar, especially for a school that asks for $20k a year for room and board,” he said.
Sheler stressed that many students, especially those of lower income, can’t afford to spend money on delivered food from restaurants for two weeks straight.
“It really adds up,” Sheler said. “And they shouldn’t have to when NYU promised three meals a day delivered to them in order to maintain a comfortable quarantine.”
Nearly 150 students have added their information to a mutual aid spreadsheet that was created to help residents pay for sufficient meals during the quarantine period. Via the spreadsheet, students are able to request money and include a payment method, as well as indicate their assigned rooms for deliveries.
In the afternoon on Thursday, university spokesperson John Beckman emphasized that this is a “never-before-tried operation” for both NYU and Chartwells, the university’s food vendor.
Beckman noted that there are over 2,600 quarantining students, and nearly 20 percent of the meals are specialized. “But it is vital to get it right, and we are disappointed in Chartwells’s management of the quarantine meals process,” Beckman said. “We and Chartwells are correcting the situation promptly.”
In an email sent later the same day, NYU Associate Vice President of Campus Services Owen Moore also apologized to students for the difficulties.
“Given the restrictions of quarantine, we are all the more upset that our efforts fell short; we’re sure mealtime was something that all of you were looking forward to, and we are sorry to disappoint any of you with any of the three meals you are supposed to get,” the statement said.
Moore said the new measures to improve service include making meals earlier in the day, adding staff to respond to complaints, dedicating staff to speciality meal preparation, adding staff at the residence halls to deliver the meals more promptly, and bringing on another food service provider. Students will also be provided with money to order delivery themselves if the received food is of poor quality.
To further compensate, NYU and Chartwells will give students a $100 e-card to order delivered food. “We’re committed to improving things promptly, and we regret that things didn’t go as well as we had planned from the outset.”
UPDATE: 9 a.m., Aug. 21, 2020: This story has been updated to include a mutual aid spreadsheet designed to help students pay for and receive sufficient meals during the two-week quarantine.
