What to know about a new student meal plan alternative

UF’s on-campus meal plans are abundantly used by students but lack one essential feature: off-campus dining.

Bite Club Meal Plan, the newest entrant in Gainesville’s culinary market, allows students to eat at off-campus restaurants with meal credits. The plan is not affiliated with UF or Santa Fe College but intends to feed those students, hoping to attract attention for its unique policy — meal credits that roll over until graduation. 

Bite Club hopes to capitalize on student dissatisfaction with university dining by diverting attention from dining halls to restaurants, its founder said.

Jack Warman, the 28-year-old Bite Club Meal Plan founder and master’s of marketing senior at UF, was inspired to create the plan because of his own dissatisfaction with meal plans. 

"I remembered getting roped into my meal plan freshman year and really being unsatisfied, wasting all the money,” he said.

Warman said he was determined to find a way to better serve students.

“We looked to create an alternative meal plan for UF and Santa Fe students that they can use instead of going to the dining halls,” he said. “I hate dining halls.”

The meal plan has paired with 19 restaurants around the Gainesville area, he said, including Chicken Salad Chick, Gumby’s Pizza, Burrito Famous and PrimoHoagies.

Students and their families can purchase credits from the Bite Club website and use the app to order ahead from restaurants near campus free of extra charge. 

Credits are based on a one-to-one ratio, meaning every credit purchased is equal to $1 at the restaurant. Credits are currently available for purchase in packs of 20, 50, 100, 400 and 2,000, ranging from $22 to $2,000. 

Plans can also be purchased with 529 college saving plans, allowing more flexibility for students, Warman said. 

Unlike the meal plans traditionally sold, Bite Club does not impose a specific time frame upon students to finish their credits, Warman said. Bite Club also sports its own website and mobile app, allowing students and their parents the option to purchase credits. 

Under Florida Fresh Dining, students can only use credits for on-campus locations. Bite Club offers the opposite, featuring exclusively off-campus restaurants. 

Bite Club Meal Plan didn’t come to Gainesville by accident. 

Warman began to work in the food tech industry after graduating from Florida State University in 2014 with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship. Before returning to UF for his master’s, he worked with companies similar to Bite Club.

There was a hole in the market, stemming directly from Gainesville, Warman said.

“They would come to me sometimes and be like, ‘OK after we open this campus, where do you think we should go next?’ And there was a time I said, ‘UF, UF, UF,’” he said. 

Warman was inspired to bring a meal plan to Gainesville, and he believed now was the perfect opportunity. Using the concepts he has learned from his two degrees, he said he hopes all involved parties can benefit from his business model. 

“​​The first rule of Bite Club is … eat well,” he said. 

Michael Cooper, a 30-year-old UF alum, said he wishes he could have used the Bite Club meal plan while he was in school. 

“I would have signed up to have an extra level of convenience,” Cooper said. “I didn’t always have time to cook for myself.”

Bite Club originally began as a project for the UF master’s of entrepreneurship course, called The First 100 Days, as Warman’s capstone project. Warman, the business’s sole proprietor, said he figured he might as well see if he could make something out of it. He said his time at UF as an entrepreneurship student encouraged him to pursue this idea. 

“You’re kind of told the whole time, ‘Hey, you can start a business,’” he said. “After [the class] was done, I was like, ‘well, I might as well try and do it.’”

Bite Club Meal Plan is currently available online and ready for orders. 

Contact Rachel Mish at rmisch@alligator.org. Follow her on X @mish_rache62827.

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