You're looking at your meal plan balance at the end of the semester and realize it was a complete waste of money. Between the unused swipes and plus dollars on top of the subpar food, you're frustrated but feel like you don't have viable alternative options. You don't want to eat at Newcomb for the rest of your four years, but at this point you don't know what to do because you hate the idea of cooking for yourself.
Enter Elevate Foods, a company with a new, independent meal plan for University of Virginia students that brings Corner food to them. The plan comes from the creators of FlashCater, a catering company in Charlottesville responsible for serving over 40,000 meals within the Greek community in the past two years.
Starting at the beginning of spring 2016, you can buy 15, 45, 75, or 105 meals per semester for between $9 and $9.30 plus tax per meal. The meal plan allows you to eat at Revolutionary Soup, Café Caturra, Trinity, Christian's Pizza, Boylan Heights, Coupe's, Eddy's Tavern, Mellow Mushroom, Michael's Bistro, the 105 Grill and Pub, Gingko Chinese, and Two Guys Tacos, and more options are coming soon.
Using the Elevate app, you can keep track of your remaining meals and pick up food. All portions are full-size and you can take your food to go or eat it in the restaurant.
With over 100 different food options, the food menu is extensive and the variety is appealing. All of the different options mean that you won't get sick of eating the same thing for lunch every day because there are bound to be multiple things on the menu that you like.
Some of the menu items that caught my eye were the Arugula Goat Salad from Café Caturra, most of Boylan's standard burger menu, and the Ham and Brie sandwich at Rev Soup, which comes with a soup or salad. The Elevate Meal Plan allows rollover meals so you don't have to rush to use up all of your swipes at the end of the semester. And as long as you show your ID, you can get multiple meals at a time.
Finally, someone has realized that the UVA Dining meal plans are just not sufficient in quality or value. And in a town like Charlottesville with such a thriving food scene, it just doesn't make sense to settle for below-average dining hall food.
Elevate Foods is changing the game for UVA students searching for a cost-effective meal plan with many different options that actually taste good. After all, what UVA student wouldn't want to eat a ton of their meals on the Corner?
