New Company Wants to Fill Students’ Stomachs On-Demand
By Ryan Frascella
Food whenever you want? That is the exact concept that a Temple senior envisioned and has now used to create his own company. Andrew Nakkache is one founder of Habitat Temple. Habitat Temple seeks to be a variation of GrubHub, the popular service that acts as an on-demand food supplier, as a food service more geared towards college students. Now, with Habitat, students don’t have to leave their dorm or the library during long study breaks to get food because someone can bring it to you.
“My co-founder and I asked ourselves what do students buy everyday? The answer. Food. Then we thought about how we are going to compete with the companies out there and we thought, food trucks,” Nakkache said.
Habitat currently delivers from the food trucks on campus, as well as Subway, Mexican post and Hue Deli on 16th and Cecil B. Moore. This sounds like a great idea, but one that may be a little expensive? Nakkache tells me how much it costs.
“Right now we’re charging students a $3 delivery fee, and then in the end once you are matched with your runner, you can rate and tip them much like you would in Lyft,” Nakkache said.
One of the ways that they are able to keep the price down is by creating a small delivery radius to ensure quicker deliveries. Aside from on-demand service, Habitat Temple provides a great opportunity for students to find a job. To become a “runner”, all you need is a bike or skateboard and you can start earning money for yourself in your free time.
“The runners automatically get the 3 dollars right off the bat and then whatever tips they earn from the purchaser,” Nakkache said.
If you want to get involved with the company in a way that doesn’t require biking around food deliveries to other students, Nakkache talked about the benefits of doing an internship with the newly created company, since everyone at the company except for the co-founder started as an intern.
“An internship is a great opportunity because we get to know them and they get to know us. If they go above and beyond and we really like them, then we’ll decide to bring them on board,” Nakkache said.
While the company has been up and running for a little over a month, they started to publicize themselves to students this week. So far they have fulfilled 75 orders just for people who actively sought them out before they announced their service to the entire campus. Nakkache told me that he can definitely see a favorite restaurant among the students, but is keeping the name a secret.
Habitat Temple provides a new service to students that will surely see its popularity increase as the year continues.
