SchoolCafé

I’m writing this review to discourage school districts from choosing this app. Our district used to use Lunch Money Now. It was simple but much better than School Cafe, which they moved to this year. Here’s why. 1: The service fee is much higher per transaction. 2: They limit the amount of money per transaction to $100. This is a problem when you are putting money into the accounts of multiple teens and preteens who eat a lot every lunch! Not only am I going to have to take the time to make more frequent transactions instead of putting more money in all at once, I’m going to be paying that higher service fee every single time. (The previous app had no limit that I saw.) School Cafe’s app says if you want to put more money in than $100 at a time, call your ISD and see if you can drive over and write them a check. (Or, School Cafe, you could raise the max amount per transaction to $200 at least. You are supposed to make things more convenient for parents, right??) 3: the old app updated lunch balances every two hours. Why does it take 1-2 days or even longer for School Cafe?? To any ISDs, I recommend you not make your parents use this app for school lunches until School Cafe fixes these issues. Almost $3 fee per transaction is too much. (Guys. Come on.) I’ll be recommending to my ISD that they get rid of this app in the future and go back to the old one or find a new one. As it is, with multiple kids in school, I’ll be logging on here often and chucking my dollars into their service fee hole all year. Yes, it’s technically convenient to have a lunch app. But as it stands, this is Not the best one for parents. Frustrating.

I have 3 children that have now all made their way through their elementary, middle and high school years and School Cafe has been right with us “almost” through all 3 kids school years (I think it came out a few years into our oldest child’s schooling). Having School Cafe has been such a blessing in making sure all the kids had their “lunch money”! It has been a partner/much needed (and appreciated) part of all these years for sure! This platform/and the reminders of low funds (in conjunction with the app) has been so very helpful! Admittedly….I think one of my kids had insufficient funds only one time - but that was my fault for missing the “reminder”.. but school cafe never missed a thing (and yes- my daughter has never let me forget that day 😂 - and I never missed another school cafe reminder after that occurrence that’s for sure)!! As far as the small “online” fee - it is so worth it…as School Cafe keeps up with EVERYTHING! Thank you to everyone at School Cafe in helping us all these years!

This app makes knowing your child will always have money on their account for breakfast or lunch a breeze, no more worry or hassle to ensure they are always fed, with the app feature to set low limit balance alerts at the dollar amount of your choice, with the selection of limiting which items they are allowed, allowed occasionally and are restricted from purchasing without you having to be there, you are also able to ensure healthy choices are being enforced even while not in your care, if you so choose to use these features it’s all an extra bonus to the ease of the app in adding funds to your child’s or children’s account lunch balances, snack balances and so forth, definitely worth downloading, no more sending your child with money to school for breakfast or lunch and no more wondering if they ate lunch or breakfast at all that day, with the app keeping record of where and what the money was spent on, water-drinks-food tray- chips- snacks, I love the app by far!