Mary Biggins co-founded ClassPass on the idea of a gym class membership that transcended individual gym chains. Now she's brought her latest application of that model to Washington, D.C. with MealPal, a kind of ClassPass for restaurants. The meals can come out to less than $6 each depending on the subscription you use.
Launched in January as MealPass by Biggins and co-founder (and former college roommate) Katie Ghelli, MealPal operates as a tiered subscription service with a certain number of lunches available from a group of D.C. restaurants every month based on what you pay. You order the meal ahead of time, between 5 p.m. the night before to 9:30 the morning of the lunch.
"There's a ton of noise in food tech," Biggins told DC Inno in an interview. "There's a lot of value propositions out there, but our model is different."
The differences compared to startups like Galley, PlumRelish, UberEats or PostMates are easy to spot. For one, there's no delivery, you have to go get the food at the restaurant. The other big difference is in customization. Rather than having each meal customized, users have a limited number of options based on questions they answer about what they are looking for in terms of meal size, dietary restrictions and other requirements. They then have to pick from the meal options presents based on those choices. That's the key to making the whole system worth it to restaurants.
"It's 35 percent more cost-efficient than having every salad or pizza customized," Biggins said. "Restaurants find the labor costs are the hardest to cut. It's just more efficient to have one person make 500 of one kind of meal. The cost savings matter."
MealPal is now is six cities, having added Chicago this week as well as D.C. Biggins declined to comment on any funding, but more than half a million lunches have been eaten since the company launched. In D.C. the restaurants cover a relatively small patch of the city, though Biggins said there are already plans to expand it beyond its downtown and Dupont Circle core. There are a wide variety of food options though, with contrasts like the vegetarian meals BeefSteak and pub food from Mad Hatter sharing a spot on the list with other popular spots like District Taco and DC Pizza, two of Biggins' favorites.
The point is to have options, but not so many that it makes the cost of labor, and thus the meal, go up. With so many options for food delivery out there, MealPal will have to make a case for switching over, especially since it's a pre-paid subscription, not an on-demand option.
"Food is really personal. It's so important that people know exactly what they are getting," Biggins said. "That's why we curate and have a standard of quality. We can offer the healthy food and the comfort food, but it's all high quality, but you don't have to spend as much."
