I remember that back in college, the food at the dining hall was so abysmal that I experienced “The Freshman -15,” surviving on processed chicken and salsa. That’s not a unique case. There are college kids across the country putting up with crappy food on campus.
It’s even worse in Boston, where we have students coming from all over the world to go to school. While their thirst for knowledge may be quenched, many of them are left craving for an authentic, home-cooked meal.
It took Gianmarco Di Pino and Nikhilesh More, students at Northeastern and founders of Myoncampus Chef, a matter of months to look at both of these problems and come up with a simple solution. Through their startup, which was named the Audience Favorite at the recent Husky Startup Challenge Demo Day, students can host and attend dinners where they can enjoy not only the cuisine of different countries, but also their cultures.
Homesick for authentic food
Di Pino and More, both international students, were particularly aware of how hard it is to get food that’s true to their cultures on campus.
“People from China who eat Chinese food here, they say, ‘No, that’s not Chinese food,’” Di Pino said. “Just like me. I am Italian and I went to Little Italy the other weekend. I tried it and that wasn’t Italian food. And it was so expensive. For a plate of pasta, it was $28. You know, in Italy it’s no more than 10 euros for pasta. It’s crazy.”
“As an Indian student in USA, I observed that none of the Indian restaurants offered the same traditional food,” More added. “For example, Dal Chawal, a traditional indian meal which is a combination of white rice served with a soup made of pulses, veggies and spices was not served here. Similarly, there are other cuisines that might not be serving traditional food at restaurants."
So they created Myoncampus Chef, an online platform through which students can organize dinners where they cook their favorite dishes from back home for people in the campus community who want to to have good food and be temporarily immersed in a culture.
“We want to give people the experience to taste traditional food, but also to feel a new environment,” Di Pino elaborated. “Boston is an international place. There are so many people from around the world here, but they don’t have a way to share time together. Now they can do dinners.”
Making student dinners a part of the sharing economy
Myoncampus Chef just hosted its first paid dinner, which cost participating college kids $15 - money that went straight into the pocket of the student chef. From there, everyone enjoyed a laid-back and friendly dining experience that also allowed them to spread their connections beyond the confines a classroom. The company is hoping to bring together different social circles that normally wouldn’t meet.
“You have a student who hosts a dinner and cooks in front of you a homemade recipe, maybe that his mother made,” Di Pino said of the dinners organized through the startup. “It will have friends and people you don’t know, and all of you will share this moment together.”
“First, people have to introduce themselves to one another,” he continued. “They talk about school, classes and midterms. But then they start to laugh and play a game. It’s up to the chef what happens.”
Right now, Myoncampus Chef is investing in building up their site so that all interactions related to the startup - including processing payments for the student dinners - can be done online. With their sites on a couple of accelerator programs, More and Di Pino hope to be building a solid social dining network first in Boston and then beyond to other cities in the U.S.
Image via Gianmarco Di Pino.
