Pace Pleasantville has a number of student-run businesses on campus, including Perk Perk, Pace Perk Mart, Pace Fit, and Pace Delivers. These businesses specialize in their respective types of food service, curated by and for students on campus.

Pace Delivers is a delivery service run by Pace students which is open nightly. The business up until recently only allowed Flex Dollars and Voluntary Points as payment. Students order online from a selection of restaurants earlier in the evening and then Delivers employees go to Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, and Applebees to deliver the food students ordered at 10 PM, and then do a second round to McDonald’s, Rocky’s, and Pace Perk for delivery at midnight.

 Flex Dollars and Voluntary Points were always the only payment method allowed for purchases but recently after being acquired by Pace Perk, Delivers can now also accept Meal Plan.

Pace Delivers was founded in 2017, and according to Deliver’s General Manager, Xavier Flores, the idea that started Delivers came from a Pace Shark Tank competition for new student business ideas. A team of students pitched what is now known as Pace Delivers.

Xavier Flores is a junior Business Management Major and has been the general manager of Pace Delivers since last fall. He started his freshman year at Delivers in September 2020 as a delivery driver. Flores became General Manager officially as a sophomore in the Fall of 2021.

Since Pace Perk recently acquired all student-run businesses, including Delivers, this allows all the student-run businesses acquired by Perk to accept Meal Plan as a form of payment. This is because Pace Perk has been authorized to allow Meal Plan for payment since its founding in 2010 and therefore, all those that are acquired by Perk are able to do the same.

On Monday, November 28th, it became official that Pace Perk partnered with all student-run businesses on campus, including Pace Delivers. Pace Delivers and other student businesses made the change to allow meal plan as payment for food rather than just Flex Dollars official on the same day.

Why did all of Pace Pleasantville’s student businesses join Perk?

According to Flores, Pace Mart, another student-run business, was struggling due to students having low Flex funds, and Perk decided to acquire them to keep the business alive, under a new name of Pace Perk Mart. Pace Perk then acquired Pace Fit, now Pace Perk Fit, and most recently Pace Delivers, now Pace Perk Delivers.

The root of the issue was with Flex Dollars, which are essentially a small amount of allotted money, usually $55, given to all students to spend at a few select off-campus restaurants. These Flex Dollars also can be used at campus-affiliated stores such as the bookstore or Starbucks on campus. Starbucks accepts both Meal Plan and Flex Dollars. 

$55 does not really seem like enough for all of those possibilities for spending, but it is what Pace gives students. Because of this, students run out of Flex Dollars quickly. This issue with Flex Dollars contributed to Pace Deliver’s decision to allow Meal Plan, as well as their merge with Pace Perk.  

In regards to Voluntary Points, these are an optional addition to student Meal Cards. Voluntary is essentially Flex Dollars that students can add to their account once they run out of the Flex Dollars Pace gives students. Most students do not opt to get Voluntary Points though, because these, unlike Meal Plan and Flex Dollars, come straight out of their pockets.

In regards to how Perk acquired Delivers, Flores says, “we were only able to take Flex and Voluntary and were struggling this semester, especially later in the semester when people ran out of the very limited flex or voluntary money they have. (…) Pace Perk had already acquired the other student-run businesses and when we reached a point where we couldn’t survive off flex and voluntary sales alone, they got us too.”

When asked about what this acquisition will mean for Delivers, Flores said, “All our sales go to the Pace Perk account, and then after taking their percentage of product sales and fees, they distribute the appropriate amounts to the other various Perk businesses. The management teams are the same and most of the procedures remained the same as well but our business has been thriving in the recent weeks and we are hoping to see consistent sales for the remainder of the school year. “

It is apparent that all of Pace’s student businesses are going to benefit from this. Having the advantage of being under the name of the campus’s most successful business means that they get the comforts that being in a successful business brings as well as adopting Perk’s ability to accept Meal Plan as a form of payment.