For those hungry students with few culinary skills, a free online option can now satisfy those late-night cravings with a few clicks of a computer mouse.
Starting Monday, the Web site, www.campusfood.com, will forward students’ orders to restaurants for free. The company charges the restaurant a fee for using their service. And students just pay the normal charge to the restaurant for the food and a tip for the delivery person.
From Oct. 4 to 17, students who order food through the Web site will win free cheese pizzas from Gino’s East or Philly’s Best as an introductory offer. Company representative Robert Saunders said this promotional giveaway presents no logistical difficulties although a lot of people might order pizza when only two restaurants will supply them.
“It’ll work, we’ve been doing it all over the country,” he said. The site was able to coordinate up to 1,000 orders in one night with no major problems in other areas, he said.
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where this Web site has been in service for three weeks, there are only five restaurants connected to the site.
“I think I might have heard of it,” said Amanda Goddard, a sophomore at the University of Illinois. “I haven’t gone there though.”
Josh Medin, the manager of One World Pizza, a small restaurant in Champaign, said the restaurant has had a number of orders coming through the Web site. During the free pizza promotion they were pretty busy, he said.
“They’ve increased our business,” Medin said. “So that’s a good thing.
The owner and manager of Philly’s Best in Evanston, Dean Markellos, said the Philly’s Best branch near Loyola University has not benefitted as much as he expected from campusfood.com, which opened for Loyola students last Tuesday.
“I don’t see the excitement (the Web site) was talking about,” Markellos said. However, he has still seen some response. He said his restaurant is ready to deliver free pizzas to NU students when the promotion starts Monday.
Markellos said he hopes his restaurant will benefit from the publicity of the promotion.
Other restaurants linked to campusfood.com are Leona’s and Siam Pasta. Restaurants that are joining the service soon, according to the Web site, are Gino’s East, Merle’s BBQ, Phoenix Inn, Quizno’s, Olive Mountain, Philly’s Best, BB’s Bagels, D.D. Dogs and Panino’s Pizza.
Some students said although the idea of the Web site is interesting, they are not sure if they would use it after the free pizza promotion ends.
“I could see other people using it, but I’m not jumping up and down with joy,” said Weinberg junior Rachel Sacks. “I don’t feel like it is that much work for me to call a restaurant.”
Reach Tali Arbel at [email protected].
