GU trio serves up dining hall app

Grilled cheese ranks high. So does a Parmesan dish, and cereal. Those are some of the early results of a new iPhone app called Chow Chow, which allows Gonzaga University students to see daily campus dining choices.

Chow Chow is a crowdsourced dining hall app created by three Gonzaga sophomores – Ethan Mahintorabi, 19; Kyle McCrohan, 19; and Evan Conrad, 20 – who also are dorm roommates studying in computer-related subjects. In their spare time, they worked for several months to develop the smartphone app, not for classwork, but because they saw a need.

Before running across campus, students can view the app’s photos of daily selections in the COG dining hall and get real-time information on wait times in line for each entree. They also can rate and review meals. Within two weeks of the app’s Feb. 4 launch, more than 500 people on campus had downloaded it.

“The biggest value we offer to Gonzaga students is simply to see what’s being served in the dining hall,” McCrohan said. “We make a lot of decisions about what we see, not what we read, about food we want to eat. For students who don’t have a lot of time and live in the furthest dorms, they may want to see what’s there.”

He said some students also have limited meal plans. “They can’t go to every lunch and dinner. They want to know if it’s food they’ll like before they spend the dining dollars.”

To market Chow Chow, the students created and distributed 1,000 stickers of the app’s logo depicting a chow chow dog.

“It’s a big fluffy dog, and a play on words, yes,” Mahintorabi said.

Users will find other humor on the app. When students refresh options, they see a food joke such as, “I donut understand puns.”

While focused now on making improvements based on feedback, the students eventually plan to develop an Android version.

The app also is more of a service and currently doesn’t provide any revenue, although that could change, Conrad said. Eventually, an entity such as a dining service might want to purchase Chow Chow, he said. Adding other campus food choices, nearby restaurant menus and offers, and pre-ordering options could perhaps bring income.

“We never want to charge our users, and we don’t want annoying banner ads,” Conrad said. “The fact we’re doing so well at this school means we can probably take it to other schools in this general area, perhaps Eastern or Pullman-Moscow. Restaurants, perhaps, would allow us to include their menus and give special coupons, and would pay to do that.”

The idea evolved after McCrohan was part of a student group for a 24-hour engineering contest last year. He helped pitch an idea to measure wait times for students lining up for campus meals. Months later, Mahintorabi felt slightly sick after he ate a certain dish, and he mentioned to McCrohan a wish to see entrees before heading to dining.

“We kind of merged two ideas,” Mahintorabi said. “I was thinking, is there a way to check before we go?”

They kicked around ideas with Conrad, and more food app concepts evolved. The roommates previously had developed an Android fashion app allowing users to take a photo of themselves wearing clothing to get opinions, but it never gained momentum. “We definitely got a lot better after that,” Conrad said.

For Chow Chow’s dining wait-time estimates, they found ways to measure an aggregate based on user reports and other data.

“People can say on the app how long they’ve waited in line,” Mahintorabi said. “We kind of aggregate by combining data to get a single number. When people open the app, you can gauge how many people are on their way based on a percentage.”

Sodexo, Gonzaga’s dining contractor, does list COG entrees on a website, but Chow Chow has appeal because it’s visual and mobile-friendly, said McCrohan. “With Chow Chow, it’s one click, and we also have photos.”

McCrohan said to develop Chow Chow, they mainly relied on self-taught learning of an advanced programming language. They also had time constraints. Mahintorabi and Conrad work jobs outside of classes. McCrohan, who is in GU’s Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, takes 20 to 22 credits each semester.

Before releasing Chow Chow, the students researched Apple iOS requirements for its app store. “They have notoriously tougher standards they hold developers to,” McCrohan said, adding that Chow Chow gained approval quickly.

McCrohan’s hometown is Brier, Washington. Mahintorabi is from Los Angeles, and Conrad came to GU from Boise. All three say they enjoy working on projects that help solve problems.

“We try to build things that would make people’s lives better,” Mahintorabi said.

Conrad added, “Our current plan is to set up a software shop after school so if someone wants an app built, we can do it.”