Sushi Love demand 'unlike anything we had ever seen'

A flood of student orders caused a severe delay in Sushi Love delivery Monday night, but the restaurant and Campus Enterprises were determined to make the process more efficient for the second night of delivery.

Monday, on its first night as a Merchants-on Points vendor, Sushi Love received more than 100 orders—an amount that is almost three times that of average nights at other MOP restaurants, said sophomore Colin Power, co-director of restaurants for Campus Enterprises. The influx of orders caused a massive delay in delivery, causing some students to wait more than three hours for their food, and some to never see its arrival. But, despite an abundance of complaints, Power said the team successfully devised a management system to remedy the problems—ensuring that Tuesday-night delivery ran smoothly.

“We anticipated that this would be a massive success and planned for it to be one of the largest days ever seen," Power said. “But it blew [those expectations] out of the water. It was unlike anything we had ever seen.”

Power added that the the flood of orders is not merely attributable to Sushi Love’s first week as an MOP vendor, but is a testament to the amount of interest in the restaurant by the Duke student body.

“The biggest problem was just volume,” said Brian Taylor, a junior and co-chair of the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee. "People were counting down the hours and placed the orders rights way.”

He added that the student body’s level of enthusiasm was completely unexpected, creating both positive and negative consequences.

“It was the first day and they are going to have some growing pains,” Taylor said. “They are going to be a great vendor, but unfortunately were unable to meet the services expected out of them for that day.”

Taylor encouraged students to bear with them, adding that the service will flow more smoothly once everyone knows what to expect.

“It’s regrettable that some people had a bad experience," Power said. “Of course, though, a restaurant with 20 orders messes up one, so we were going to have two or three orders where we miss one. But out of 100 plus orders I think we did a fantastic job.”

With only two drivers scheduled for Monday evening, the restaurant had to shut down delivery from 6 to 8 p.m., as well as add another driver. On Tuesday night, the team increased the amount of drivers, maintaining between four and six throughout the evening. Power added that it is still too early to make a decision about increasing the amount of workers in the kitchen, but said the team will look into scaling up on all fronts.

Campus Enterprises also created a system of shutting down delivery for 15 minute intervals every 90 minutes—enabling the kitchen to get back on track and the drivers to catch up with the speed of delivery, Power said.

“It sounds like today went a lot better than yesterday,” Taylor said. “They’re working out some of the kinks.”

Power, who managed the coordination of the delivery teams from the restaurant Tuesday night, credited Radoozle as a major factor for success. He stated that the amount of orders placed would have been impossible for one person and a single phone-line.

“An online ordering platform like Radoozle doesn't make mistakes,” he said. “Here and there we make human errors in terms of reading or printing something wrong. But to have someone on the phone writing it all down—that’s not an efficient process.”

Power added that the team is looking to continually evolve with Radoozle’s technology—which currently exists as both a computer modality and a phone application—as well as looking ahead toward different methods of payment. The team, he added, has now figured out the broader challenges of delivery and will be working to find solutions, enabling a more streamlined process featured at other MOP restaurants.

“Our one regret is that they're not open all night long,” Power said. “We could’ve kept going.”

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