Whether you don’t know what to cook in the flat tonight, are struggling with midterm stress, or your body is beginning to deteriorate due not seeing a vegetable in a week, Critic Te Ārohi has a solution for you. The Bowling Club delivers straight to OUSA Clubs and Socs, which is a perfect way to get some easy eats when getting takeout seems like the only feasible form of self care. If you didn’t know this existed, it’s your golden ticket to quick, cheap and nutritious kai.
If you haven’t heard of the Bowling Club before, then you’re seriously missing out. The Bowling Club runs on a kaupapa of bringing the Ōtepoti community together to eat fulfilling meals that don’t empty out your wallet. Students can order Bowling Club meals online, pick a day, and grab their food straight from the OUSA Clubs and Socs building in the afternoon. The food is delivered around 4:20pm (a lucky number for this issue of Critic), and they recommend picking it up before 6pm to ensure freshness. It’s easy, and cheap as chips.
If you’re wondering how cheap, you’ll be paying anywhere from $5-8 for a meal, and an extra $3 if you’d like dessert with that. And the food is good – like actually good. Wraps, mac and cheese, curries, meatloaf, apple pie, carrot cake… The menu goes on! Meals cycle throughout the weeks, so you’ll never get bored, and are essentially guaranteed to get that famous 5+ a day. Every meal is built around what produce is in season or available in bulk.
Given all of this, it’s no surprise that the Bowling Club has built its reputation on affordable, nutritious meals – but that’s only half their story. In reality, the Bowling Club team sustains a large-scale food support system, distributing hundreds of frozen and hot meals every week to people who can't make it out to the Caversham-based eatery. That support system is a critical buffer to folks who are experiencing food insecurity, offering discount codes for those who need them, and free meal vouchers if you’re able to pay them a visit in person.
Critic spoke to Jackie, who is half the brains behind the Bowling Club alongside Liam.“At this point in time, we’re just a business,” she told Critic. “We need the business to stay afloat so that the service can stay afloat.” She emphasised that support is what will keep the kaupapa moving forward. The Bowling Club doesn’t ask for much, but they have heaps to give. According to Jackie, support “can literally just be getting a cheap dinner from us.”
Jackie explained to Critic that there is a weird myth floating around that ordering from the Bowling Club somehow takes food away from people who need it more. However, this is far from the truth: the model only works if enough people are buying meals. Sustaining this model is a challenge, as it relies on all parts of the community to help one another. According to Jackie, it has been tricky to keep enough people coming through their doors: “something has to change, or we'll eventually have to fizzle out.”
If you’re wondering how you can support such valuable mahi as a student, the OUSA delivery system is one of the easiest ways to help, and feel free to give anyone from the team feedback. “We want students to tell us what works for them,” Jackie urges. So whether that’s introducing flat meal packs, subscriptions or any other ideas to make it easier to get kai into the bellies of students, the team is willing to listen.
Save what little is left in your bank account, skip the UberEats tonight and order from the Bowling Club. Support a kaupapa that supports the community, as well as your body as we all head into winter. Health is wealth!
