How San Jose State University cut lines for students and improved their bottom line
San Jose State University (SJSU) is a California public university with a diverse student body of nearly 40,000 and a vibrant campus community. The oldest public university on the West Coast (established in 1857), SJSU pairs its long history of providing quality education with the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley.
Spartan Eats, the university's dining program, aims to offer a wide range of food options and ensure efficient service to cater to the needs of its busy student population, faculty, and staff. Serving thousands of meals daily across multiple dining concepts, SJSU's dining services play a crucial role in the overall campus experience.
Operating 18 outlets and 325 staff is full of challenges, and one of the biggest among those is keeping service quick in the extremely busy Student Union at the heart of campus. Paseo Market, a small grab-and-go located within the Student Union, historically struggled with the high traffic and transaction volume within a compact space.
Despite having two registers, the market frequently experienced long queues that would spill out into the wider area of the Student Union. The volume also made it difficult for staff to have the time and space to keep it stocked during rush hours.
Leaning into SJSU’s spirit of innovation, Mario Martinez, Resident District Manager of Spartan Eats, brought in Mashgin’s AI Checkout as a way to both reduce lines and give staff more flexibility to work. Mashgin’s technology uses computer vision to quickly ring up items as soon as a student places them on the counter, creating a quick and easy self-checkout lane for students.
As you might expect for students living in the technology capital of the world, campus guests quickly took to the new AI-Powered option. Mashgin rapidly became the preferred way of transacting for students at Paseo Market, making up nearly 70% of store transactions today.
The first impact the team noticed from deploying Mashgin was the reduced lines at Paseo Market. With a median transaction time of 9.5 seconds on Mashgin, the speed of service had dramatically improved and the lines that once spilled onto the Student Union disappeared.
At the same time transactions increased 14%, driving 18% more total sales (12% and 16% when controlling for student growth). This growth continued the following year as new student housing opened near the Student Union, growing transactions by an additional 15%, with Mashgin’s kiosk absorbing all 13,000 additional transactions!
Even as the volumes increased in the store, the faster speed of service allowed Martinez and the Spartan Eats team to be more efficient with staffing. Where Paseo Market once needed two cashiers at any rush period, it could now operate with a single cashier - freeing up a teammate to stock or assist at other outlets in the Student Union. This gave the Spartan Eats team about 1.5 extra shifts a day to use at other locations across the campus, all while providing an improved level of service at Paseo Market.
“Students really love the speed of service, the convenience, and that they don't need to give someone their credit card or talk to anybody if they don’t want to.”
Students and faculty bought more with Mashgin
Students overwhelmingly chose Mashgin over other checkout methods
Using Mashgin, SJSU was able to move 1.5 staff shifts a day to other outlets
