Two to three times a week, Kate Kelly grocery shops for each item on her menu of affordably priced dinners. She sets up in her kitchen; the counter filled with noodles, sauces and garlic bread.
After she’s done cooking, she snaps the lid onto each container one by one, packs them up and starts her walk through campus with her dog Poppy. She’s on her way to deliver each home-cooked meal to Marquette students.
It’s been a year since Kelly, a senior in the College of Nursing, started @thegirlthatcooksmu, an Instagram account where students can order one of the $10-$15 meals on her menu. With some changes to her business, she’s seeing it thrive more than ever.
Kelly decided to share her excitement over food by creating a service that provides an on-campus food option with quality ingredients for students who want a break from the dining hall.
She began her Marquette food delivery service in the fall of 2024, but this semester, she has experienced recent success in the business’s popularity due to increased word-of-mouth and social media presence.
When she first started her business, Kelly decided to use half of the funds earned to cook a meal at a homeless shelter in the Milwaukee area. But after only a semester of this service, only one shelter let her provide meals. Now, she is unable to donate her food to shelters, as they require food to be cooked onsite or in a commercial kitchen.
Despite this roadblock, Kelly won’t let it keep her from giving back. She is still on the lookout for a shelter that will accept meals, and she plans to let her Instagram followers know when the proceeds will be used to fund meals in the future.
“If I’m gonna do a meal for the homeless, I will post like, ‘Hey, this meal is for the homeless,’ to kind of have more people be motivated to buy it for that [and] not just for themselves,” Kelly said. “But I’m still looking for a place to do it.”
Around three times a week, excluding Fridays and Saturdays, Kelly will take orders from Marquette students through her Instagram account. On a typical delivery day, Kelly will receive a total of 15 to 30 orders.
Although her service is open to all Marquette students, it has seen increased popularity among first and, specifically, second-year students because of a residence hall delivery option.
“It’s kind of like the sophomore, Schroeder, Cobeen, Carpenter demographic,” Kelly said.
Originally, Kelly had students fill out their orders on a Google form, stating their desired meal, time and drop-off location. But as customers’ direct messages were lost while scheduling drop-off timing for every order became too hectic, Kelly found herself scrambling to find a better option.
This year, she created a Jotform that students can order their meals from and outlines specific meal drop-off times for the different residence halls, allowing her to devote more of her time and energy to the food instead of managing operations.
But Kelly’s day still requires a lot of meticulous planning.
A typical order day for Kelly begins at around noon. After scouring Pinterest for inspiration for the day’s menu and posting it, she then purchases the necessary groceries for that day’s meals.
From 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Kelly can be found laser-focused in the kitchen as she freshly cooks every meal, jumping back and forth between boiling pots and steaming ovens to ensure every meal is perfectly cooked. After the ordering window closes at 6:30 p.m., she begins trekking through campus to deliver the meals and notify people through her Instagram story. Once 8 p.m. rolls around, her hectic day finally comes to a close, and she can unwind and prepare for the cycle to repeat the next day.
Like many first-year students starting college, Kelly was homesick, especially when she ached for family dinners while eating at the dining halls. So, Kelly decided to create that sense of family for herself by cooking “family dinners” for her and her new friends in the Commons’ kitchen, creating a sense of community for her other homesick classmates.
It’s now been three years since she first cooked in the Commons’ kitchen, but Kelly continues to use home-cooked meals to connect with her friends and the greater Marquette community.
Despite having many roommates available to assist with cooking her large menu, Kelly cooks everything she sells completely on her own. But this is a deliberate choice on her part.
“It’s like a tornado when I’m in there,” Kelly said. “When I get it done and people are happy, it makes me feel like, ‘Okay, I can do hard things.'”
Being a college student, Kelly already has existing responsibilities and stressors, whether it be work at Café Benelux or academics. And even though this food service adds another activity to her day, she views it as an opportunity to improve her skills and bring joy to others.
“The only person who’s going to make it stressful is me,” Kelly said. “If I plan well enough and I take my time to be organized and start early enough, it’s not going to be stressful.”
Because of the positive reviews given by her many peers throughout her cooking journey, Kelly finds the value in sharing a good meal, one that goes well beyond just nourishment.
“It’s more about people feeling cared for,” Kelly said. “I just think that food heals, like, on a bad day, if you have a good meal, it can turn your whole day around.”
Despite new challenges and increased demand, Kelly continues to find joy in providing this service. Having one more year left in her nursing program, Kelly is still deciding whether she will continue her business past the 2025-2026 school year. But, for now, she remains committed to making Marquette feel more like home, one meal at a time.
To learn more about Kelly’s business, visit her Instagram, @thegirlthatcooksmu.
This article was written by Elise Emery. She can be reached at [email protected].
