The hustle and bustle of our day jobs can be overwhelming. Some days it’s too hard to escape and wait in line at your fav lunch spot down the street. What if you could order your favorite salad in advance, pick it up in seconds and save lots of money?
If this intrigues you, listen up! Maybe you’ve heard of MealPal, maybe you haven’t. I tried it out for the last 30 days and am giving you the rundown here to help you decide if it’s worth it!
What is MealPal?
MealPal is a lunch subscription service that allows you to pick up lunch from local restaurants at a discounted rate. You pay for 12 or 24 meals in advance, which ends up being less than $7 each. So if you regularly go out to lunch, this is definitely a money saver. When I enrolled, I received a 40% off discount so my meals came out to about $3.50 each… a steal!
What type of meal options are available?
When you first download the app, it asks you a bunch of questions about your diet restrictions and preferences — it’s like Tinder for food ingredients 😂Then when it’s time to select meals, it shows recommended options first. For me, I was seeing a lot of Mediterranean options, salads, and sandwich wraps.
The meal options are pretty extensive. Whether you are looking for something healthy, savory, light or heavy, there’s a lunch spot for that! Every participating restaurant posts 1-2 meals that you can select from.
How easy is it?
Download the app, make an account and pick which subscription option you’d like (either 12 or 24 meals for 30 days). When it’s time to pick out your first lunch, go on the app between 5pm the day before and 10:30am the day of to select your meal of choice. You can pick meals Monday through Friday during lunch times, and some cities have dinner options. Chicago, unfortunately, only offers lunch at this time. When selecting your meal, you’ll have to pick a specific pickup time within a 15 minute window.
When it’s lunchtime, you can head to the place you chose, skip the line, scan the QR code at the restaurant with your MealPal app and grab your meal. It’s as easy as that!
What were some of my favorite spots?
I opted for options that were close to my office within a ten minute walk. I went to Just Salad, Freshii, Be Leaf and I Dream of Falafel on repeat since they were some of my favorites.
From Just Salad, I tried their chicken shawarma, buffalo chicken, and the thai chicken crunch salads. I loved how nice they were there, allowing me to swap the salads dressings when I wanted. I wasn’t a big fan of the thai peanut dressing, so I usually swapped that with the yogurt dill dressing.
At Freshii, I tried their buffalo chicken wrap and it was one of the best I’ve ever had. Whenever I got this lunch, I usually brought some carrots or an apple to go with it and ate half at a time. Half at lunchtime and half a few hours later.
Before MealPal I never tried Be Leaf, but it’s definitely somewhere I will go from now on. I tried their Greek to Me and Falafel-osophy salads and both were amazing! The falafel was made with sweet potatoes so it was a softer consistency than normal, but delicious!
The problem with getting salads out for lunch is the calories for the dressings are usually so high. I opted to use my own or using the dressing sparingly.
Is it worth it?
If you regularly go out to lunch, MealPal is def worth it for you! I enjoyed not meal prepping as much the last month and trying some new restaurants, but I don’t think it’s the best option for me. I like to track what I eat and choose my ingredients so that my meals are high protein and filling. Plus having to leave the office to pick up lunch is always an inconvenience for me when I have a busy day or if it’s raining outside.
But truly, I did enjoy it while it lasted. At the 40% rate, it would have been dumb not to try it out. The key to get this reward is to sign up with your email and wait a few days or week until you receive it via email.
Bottom line, it’s totally worth a try, especially with a discounted offer rate. For those of you that hate meal prepping or thinking about lunches, this is a great option that you should consider!