Digital Menu Kiosk Case Study: Chartwells at University of Chicago

Meet Devin Davis, Senior Marketing Manager, Chartwells Higher Ed, University of Chicago and WAND Digital client. Devin is an innovator on a mission to make UC the top academic dining experience in America. We’re just happy to play a role in his story and help him along the way. But don’t take our word for it, hear what he has to say about the efficiency of WAND Digital menu technology 😉

Hello my name is Devin Davis, the Senior Marketing Manager for Chartwells Higher Education at the University of Chicago. We’re here at Woodlawn Dining Commons, one of our newest dining facilities. This is one of the top universities in the nation. It’s such a diverse crowd with students are from all over the world but they all have stories with food.

Growing up in rural North Carolina, my parents to go out to eat was too far away so my parents cooked a meal just about every day.  The food brought us together so food was love. That’s how my family shared love with me and that’s how i want to share love with the students.

We wanted to have a strategy when implementing the digital displays. One of the most important individuals on campus is our campus registered dietitian, Cecily Martinez. Cecily worked closely with WAND Digital figure out what to pull from Webtrition, which is our menu item database, and she puts it on a plate.

Our unique stations such as our kosher station, halal station, our rooted station which is completely vegan… we wanted to list all the ingredients so we added 22-inch displays where we can have more information to have the story along with the food really went a long way to the guest satisfaction and overall guest experience

People is truly my passion bringing joys and smiles to our people. Food is just one channel I can do that and I try to move people in that way.

Devin first implemented digital menu boards while with Northwestern University  and fell in love with them right away. They showed bright, stunning visuals that perfectly depicted the food offerings and created an extra level of excitement and enjoyment for the students before they even ordered their meal. However, Northwestern’s additional Print ID (PID) food station labels were cumbersome, costly and inflexible. Devin knew there had to be a better way.

When Devin was promoted at Chartwells Higher Education to lead dining experience and marketing at University of Chicago in Illinois, he immediately engaged WAND Digital to collaborate on a solution to complete the digital transformation. Together, a plan was formed to replace the legacy PID with WAND Digital menu kiosk software and 22 inch Chromebook OS tablets supporting 4 dining halls and dozens of food stations.

Devin plans to implement the WAND Digital menu kiosk solution across all four dining halls at University of Chicago to take advantage of efficiencies of operations and to scale the experience. Continued testing and optimization of promotions and seasonal offerings is easy with WAND Digital and keeps the menu fresh for UC student, faculty and guests. Devin intends to share best practices to replicate his success across other Chartwells Higher Education partners.  No doubt he is setting the benchmark.