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MealPass, a monthly lunch subscription service, launched in New York City in March 2016, but rebranded as MealPal this week.
The service was founded by the team behind ClassPass, a startup that gives customers access to a variety of fitness classes in a particular city for a flat fee. The model is similar to Netflix, where a monthly rate lets you pick from a selection of movies.
With MealPal, you get an all-you-can-eat subscription — you can pick up a daily (albeit not unlimited) lunch from participating restaurants. For the monthly price of $119 (without tax), MealPal gives subscribers lunch Monday through Friday — which means each meal costs less than $6.
Over 600 New York City restaurants have signed up to participate in the MealPal program. It's also available in Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, and Washington DC.
Now that the service has added so many restaurants for users to choose from, the options can get overwhelming. So on September 19, the program launched what they're calling a "Tinder for food" function. Users can swipe right or left on up to 100 ingredients they like or dislike. Then the app's bot will recommend meals based on those preferences.
I tried the service for a week before the new update when it launched in March. Here's what happened.
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I was instructed to log on between 7 pm and 9:30 am before each lunchtime to reserve my food and select a pick-up time. With the update, you can now choose your lunch starting at 5 pm.
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The Sunday night before the first day, I filtered by location, which narrowed my options down to 10 restaurants (though MealPal has since added dozens more) within a three-block radius of the Business Insider office. I chose pulled pork sliders from The Hog Pit.
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On Monday, I ventured outside to pick up my food, which felt strange since I usually bring my lunch.
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