Mike Rondinaro
Co-founder
Why we partner only with Best Places to Work
At Parkday we don’t work with every office that reaches out.
We focus on companies that are already on a path to being — or staying — a Best Place to Work: the workplaces that want people in the office, invest in their teams, and see lunch as part of total compensation, not a coupon.
That focus isn’t a branding thing. It’s a practical decision about:
How food shapes culture
How incentives work for employees
How we keep the Parkday experience outstanding as we scale
This page is written for the people who make those calls: workplace leaders, People teams, operations, and founders who care about the day-to-day reality of their office.
TL;DR: Why we only work with Best Places to Work
If you just want the quick answer:
We tend to partner with teams that optimize for quality and culture, not just the lowest sticker price. Misaligned workplaces usually self-select out long before implementation.
All-in, Parkday is often cost-competitive once marketplace fees, delivery chaos, and waste are factored in — but our goal is to be the best lunch experience, not simply the cheapest line item.
We are the cheapest option for employees. Parkday meals are fully comped. No stipends, no co-pays, no surprise fees.
Half-baked perks backfire. A weak lunch perk feels worse than no perk and erodes trust.
Great workplaces comp the whole thing. They know the return shows up in morale, collaboration, retention, and recruiting.
A better culture creates a better feedback loop. Happy teams eat together, give better feedback, and tell their friends about both their job and their lunch.
What we mean by “Best Places to Work”
“Best Place to Work” isn’t a specific award for us — it’s a pattern:
They treat lunch as compensation, not charity. Food is part of the value proposition of working there.
They want people in the office together. Not by force, but because it’s genuinely a good place to be.
They invest in health and inclusivity. Food works for vegans and omnivores, gluten-free eaters and people who just want something really good and satisfying for lunch.
They care about how the perk feels, not just how it pencils out. Employees remember if lunch feels like an afterthought.
If you recognize your workplace in that list, you’re probably the kind of company we built Parkday for.
Why “bad workplaces” don’t usually pick us
A bit of honesty: we almost never get deep into the sales process with companies that are misaligned.
The workplaces that are squeezing every dollar out of employees while asking them to commute into expensive cities tend to look for:
The absolute lowest per-meal cost
Stipend programs where employees have to make up the difference
“Marketplace” apps that shift all the friction to the office manager and employees
Those are usually the same places where:
People eat alone at their desks
Half the office is on a different platform, or just orders their own thing
Food is a line item, not a lever for culture
That’s not our lane — and that’s fine. We’re not trying to fix a bad workplace with good food. We’re here to amplify what great workplaces are already doing.
Why we refuse stipends and employee co-pays
On paper, a lunch stipend sounds generous. In practice, it often feels like this:
“We want you in the office every day, in one of the most expensive cities in the world. In exchange, here’s $10 toward lunch in a $25 city.”
In NYC or SF, $10 is not lunch. It’s a coupon.
From an employee’s perspective, that can feel worse than no perk at all:
They still have to pull out their card and make micro-decisions every single day.
They still have to make up the difference on top of their commute, rent, childcare, and everything else.
The perk becomes a reminder of how expensive everything is, not how much the company values them.
This also piles onto decision fatigue and the paradox of choice. If you give people a tiny subsidy and endless marketplace options at 11:45am, you’re catching them at their hungriest and most distracted. They’re scrolling, filtering, second-guessing, and often regretting what they picked. It’s the opposite of “set it and forget it” support.
Parkday is designed around weekly planning and curated menus, not a blank marketplace wall. You can see the week ahead, choose what actually fits your goals, and move on. We unpack this philosophy more in:
Zooming out, there’s also a broader cultural point:
In the U.S., consumers spend a relatively small share of their income on food compared to many European countries.
In much of Europe, households spend more of their budget on food and take quality seriously as part of public health and everyday life.
We’ve gotten so used to cheap, ultra-processed options that actually spending on good food can feel indulgent. It isn’t. For a company, investing in genuinely good, inclusive, healthy food is one of the most direct ways to support long-term health and performance.
So our stance is simple:
Parkday does not charge employees. Ever.
No co-pays
No surprise fees at checkout
No “company pays up to $X; after that it’s on you”
The company covers the cost, and employees get to show up, open the app, and pick food that actually fits their life.
Stipends vs fully comped lunch (at a glance)
Stipend / Marketplace | Fully Comped Parkday Program | |
|---|---|---|
Employee cost | Always pays the difference | $0 at checkout |
Daily decision load | High: search, filter, compare, second-guess | Low: curated weekly menus, “set it and forget it” |
Perk perception | “Discount code” or partial support | Clear, tangible benefit |
Admin overhead | Handling exceptions, support tickets, confusion | Program design upfront, then low ongoing overhead |
Consistency | Everyone on different apps / orders | Shared experience in the same window |
Cultural impact | Fragmented, solo lunches | Shared meals, more collaboration |
Why fully comped lunch is cheaper (for the company) than it looks
When you look only at “price per meal,” Parkday will not always be the lowest quote on your spreadsheet.
When you zoom out, a fully comped, well-run program often costs less than a cheap, fragmented one:
Fewer people churning over small frustrations. Lunch is part of how people feel treated.
Less admin drag on Ops / People. We design Parkday so the program doesn’t consume your calendar.
More time spent together. Teams that actually sit down and eat together collaborate better — and make fewer expensive miscommunications.
Higher office attendance on the days that matter. If you want people in, good food is one of the few things that consistently moves the needle.
There’s also a tax nuance that’s worth at least knowing about, even if you ultimately just hand it to your tax advisor:
There is a distinction between meals provided in kind on your business premises for the convenience of the employer and cash-equivalent perks like stipends or general gift cards.
Those in-kind, on-premises meals can often be excluded from employees’ taxable income under existing rules, whereas stipends and cash-equivalents are usually treated as taxable compensation.
The exact treatment depends on your office, your layout, and your policy design, so your finance and tax teams need to make the final call. But the high-level point we make in sales is:
When you go all-in on a structured, in-office food program, the after-tax picture for employees is often better than scattering the same dollars into taxable stipends and cash-equivalent perks.
Best Places to Work get this. They’re already investing in the space, the programming, and the people. Our job is to make food match that level.
The virtuous cycle: food → culture → referrals
Great workplaces don’t just give people food; they give them something to talk about.
Here’s what we see over and over in our best offices:
The company commits to a real program. The perk is clear: “Lunch is on us.”
Employees opt in and actually enjoy it. Meals feel personalized, healthy, and from restaurants they recognize and love.
People start eating together instead of disappearing. Lunch becomes an anchor, not a gap in the day.
Better feedback flows in. Because the baseline experience is good, people give thoughtful, specific feedback: taste, health, variety, portions.
We feed that feedback into our recommendation engine and menu planning. The program gets sharper every week.
Employees talk about it. To friends at other companies. To candidates. To office managers when they switch jobs. On Slack, on LinkedIn, and increasingly, on TikTok.
You actually want employees bragging about their lunch
One of our favorite real-world examples is a TikTok a Parkday customer’s employee posted walking through their lunch spread:
They’re just casually flexing: “Here’s what my company gives us for lunch.”
The comments are full of: “What company is this??” and “How do I get this perk?”
People tag friends, ask if there are open roles, and compare it to their own situation.
That’s the dream: your own team, organically bragging about where they work. Not on a polished recruiting page, but in the language and channels they actually use.
Best Places to Work think about perks that way. They’re not just feeding people; they’re creating moments people want to show off.
(If you’re curious, here’s the actual clip:
TikTok: “POV: your company actually feeds you well” — replace with the real link.)
Why an in-house catering operation is not the default answer
You can build a full in-house catering operation. Some companies do. A few do it very well.
But there are tradeoffs:
You’re running a restaurant inside your office. Every day.
You’re tied to one kitchen team, one set of menus, one set of constraints.
Scale tends to push you toward mass-produced, cafeteria-style food, even with great intentions.
I’ve eaten in the cafeterias and “beautiful new kitchens” of companies that do this at the highest level. The effort is there. The budget is there. And yet, the food still often feels:
Heavy and repetitive
Disconnected from the local city ecosystem
Like something made for 5,000 people — because it was
Parkday takes a different approach:
We partner with real local restaurants (including Michelin-awarded and top-rated spots).
We handle delivery and service end-to-end so you don’t have to run logistics.
We use our app and data science to match people to meals they’ll actually enjoy and feel good about later.
In-house cafeteria or kitchen vs Parkday
In-house Cafeteria / Kitchen | Parkday | |
|---|---|---|
Capex / setup | High buildout, equipment, staffing | No kitchen buildout required |
Menu variety | Limited by one team and facility | Multiple curated local restaurants |
Perception | Can feel “mass-produced” even with good intentions | Feels like real restaurants, not office food |
Flexibility | Hard to pivot quickly | Easy to adjust partners, cuisines, and menus over time |
Operational risk | You’re running a restaurant every day | We handle logistics, vendors, and day-of execution |
Data & personalization | Limited visibility into preferences | Individual-level preferences, dietary tagging, recommendations |
Who Parkday is (and isn’t) for
We’re a good fit if:
You’re building a genuinely great workplace in NYC or SF.
You want people to want to be in the office, not just comply with a policy.
You’re willing to fully comp lunch as a real perk.
You care about health, personalization, and supporting local restaurants.
We’re probably not the right fit if:
You’re looking for the cheapest possible lunch line item.
You want to push most of the cost to employees via stipends.
You see food as a box to check, not a tool for culture.
If you’re in that first camp, we’d love to talk.
FAQ: Parkday and Best Places to Work
Why does Parkday only partner with “Best Places to Work”?
Because our model works best in offices that already care deeply about culture. Fully comped, high-quality lunch amplifies what they’re doing; it can’t fix a toxic environment on its own.
Is Parkday more expensive than other lunch programs?
On a pure “price per meal” basis, sometimes yes and sometimes no. All-in — once you factor in marketplace fees, missed deliveries, food waste, admin time, and the impact on retention and recruiting — Best Places to Work typically see Parkday as one of their highest-ROI perks.
Do employees ever pay out of pocket for Parkday?
No. Parkday is fully company-funded. We don’t use stipends, co-pays, or surprise fees at checkout. Employees choose their meals, and the company covers the bill.
Can’t we just give people a lunch stipend instead?
You can, but stipends often feel like a discount code, not a perk. In expensive cities, a small stipend doesn’t buy lunch — it buys part of lunch, and employees still have to do the work. A fully comped, well-run program lands very differently, and may have more favorable tax treatment for employees than cash-equivalent benefits. (Your tax advisor can interpret the specifics for your setup.)
How is Parkday different from building an in-house cafeteria or kitchen?
Instead of running your own cafeteria or building out a full production kitchen, we bring in food from a curated roster of top local restaurants and run the logistics for you. Employees order through our app, we handle service and delivery, and we use data (plus dietitians) to keep meals aligned with health and taste. You get the feel of a great “office kitchen” without having to operate a restaurant.
If you’re building the kind of workplace where people brag about where they work and what they eat, that’s where Parkday belongs.
