Student-run small business UCLAMunchies delivers late-night snacks to Hill residents

A pair of students on the Hill were craving an alternative to late-night food while up studying one night.

Instead of visiting a vending machine, Daniel Chen and Kedar Iyer decided to start their own small business.

Dubbing the venture UCLAMunchies, the system began in Rieber Hall in April and operates between midnight and 4 a.m. Orders are placed online, through phone calls or via text messages.

Serving everything from Top Ramen and soda to preheated chimichangas and Starbucks Frappuccinos, more than twenty orders come in on a nightly basis. And the service quickly became profitable, the founders said.

Chen, a second-year biology student, and Iyer, a second-year mechanical engineering student. teamed up with their two other suitemates and have been staying up late to make deliveries to Rieber Hall, Rieber Terrace and Sproul Hall.

“At first we tried to do shifts,” Chen said. “But it got boring, so now we all just stay up until three or four and get homework done while we’re waiting for orders.”

The website offers a nightly “special” that includes a beverage and entree, such as a bean and cheese burrito, for about $4. Individual items cost between $1 and $3. Delivery is free for orders that cost more than $3.

Staying up until the break of dawn led the team to change their sleeping habits to involve sporadic naps throughout the day, but it is worth it, Iyer said.

“It gets quiet as the night goes on, but for whatever reason, people get the munchies at any time,” he added.

Parth Shah, a second-year computer science student who lives in Rieber Hall, said the service gives him more food choices late at night.

“As a vegetarian, I really appreciate that they have so many options,” he said. “I was so tired of just going to (Bruin Café) every night and this gives me other options.”

Iyer said customer-client relations are very important for UCLAMunchies, because most revenue comes from returning customers.
“About 80 percent of our customers order from us several times a week, so we want to be able to get what they want as soon as possible,” he said. “If it means an extra trip to the store, that’s a small price to pay for that kind of (customer-client) relationship.”

The trick to maintaining a large selection while maintaining a profit is buying in bulk, Iyer said.

“We’ll go to Costco and other places where we can buy large quantities,” he added. “Sometimes we’ll go to Ralphs, but it’s better for everyone when we can buy ingredients cheaply.”

Although they are moving to the apartments next year, Chen said the team expects to stay together and expand UCLAMunchies by expanding their company to include the apartments and all the dorms on campus, and eventually hire people to make deliveries, Chen said.

“It’s been extremely successful so far, and when we move to the apartments it will be a much larger area that has potential to make enough money to start hiring employees,” he said.

UCLAMunchies offers a 15-minute guarantee for all orders. Shah said he has never received a late delivery.

“They’re fast and they’re just good guys,” he said. “They’ll always have a nice conversation with you, and you can always go over to their room to pick up your food and just have a chat with them there.”