Bomber's Burrito Bar. When I was in Albany attending law school, we used to go there religiously. I miss that place. I agree that Albany is quite the dysfunctional, pot-hole ridden college town. Its amazing how many colleges are in the area, now that i think about it.

i remember when campusfood first came to my campus in 2003... every email address got one free meal -- totally free.

i remember registering a new email address every night.

ate free for like 3-4 weeks

I work at a cafe in Syracuse and we noticed this a few weeks ago. It's a shame because college kids DO notice it, and in turn they tip less. Much less. It sucks.

I work for a hospitality services company. We provide room service to limited service hotels. We do charge what is called a "packaging fee"- some goes to the restaurant to pay for things like packaging, gas, etc. The other part of it (sometimes) goes to us so we can, you know, make a profit.

So, I don't see a problem with that.

What I DO have a problem with, is the fact that it's unclear that you have to pay it and why. They should be more upfront with their charges.

@Porcelina: Exactly. I can tell you that the neither the businesses who are on campusfood were not notified, nor were the customers. It just appeared one day.

I use campus menus. Its exactly what i want; im not sure how they make money though, as im pretty sure restaurants don't pay listing fees.

@Synth3t1c: thats www.campusmenus.com by the way

From the OP: "what's the problem then if they don't even know they are paying it?"

What a great quotation! Total integrity failure. How slimy can someone be yet still maintain a functional hold on their phone? Someone should stick a warning sign on that ass.

Odd, it appears that not every place has the $0.75 fee.

Just for kicks I plugged in UC Berkeley and of the 9 restaurants listed:
--Eight of them offer the "$1 loyalty cash" - and the $0.75 service fee.
--The one remaining restaurant has no service fee, and does not offer the loyalty cash.

No more campus menus for me. I'm not paying 75 cents for the privilege of using their online system when I can just call the place for free. (My friends and I usually use these sites just to see how much different places charge, anyway.)

While I was living on campus at a University and not living in my own Apartment and going to community college as I am now, I tried CampusFood once.

Maybe they are better setup in other areas of the country, but in DFW, the service was abysmal. All of the menus and restaurant listings were out of date, the delivery charges were ~3 dollars at a minimum, and there was not a very wide selection of restaurants to choose from.

I also tried calling Customer Service at one point, with a question about my form of payment, and their call center didn't appear to be staffed, but was rather a voice mail. My call wasn't returned.

Granted, all of this was over a year ago now, so things may have changed, but... I was not impressed at the time.

And having worked in a resturant that partnered with a (home) delivery service... well, you're best of choosing an item that either doesn't require heating or will retain heat well, because the drivers often have extremely busy routes, and food was regularly left sitting for long periods of time. We would remake it after a while, but it would still take them some time to pick up the remake. We got so many complaints about the food being bad once it got to the customers (or all shaken, etc) that we stopped using the service.

@Porcelina: How does the fee make sense if campus food is already taking a cut of the food sales?

The business is already paying them for the service. This 75 cent fee makes zero sense.

Fuck em. Do what I do-unless you've won money via Food Friendzy, use Campusfood.com to browse menus. Then, simply call the place for free. Problem solved.

Well, if I want to get takeout from the same place 4 times in the span of 3 weeks (or less, given the nature of the "credit") this actually does come out to be nothing - more than 4 and it's actually a benefit to me (barely). As a college student/graduate I know that I did have places I frequented...frequently, but I wouldn't be down with that.

Plus I can always just call in once I know what's on the menu (as pointed out in other comments)

they think a bunch of broke, stoned college students adept at the internet WON'T notice this? of course they will. you're messin' with their grub. ruh-oh.

@Porcelina: They already get a cut. A 75 cent fee is basically just an excuse to get yet more money.

@ahoy-captain: I think that's the kind of thing that usually gets a "Bad Consumer" tag around here.

First off, I can't say that I see the problem with the way the cost breakdown is displayed. Am I missing something? Because I see the $0.75 Service Charge quite clearly. And why is it important for customers to know who is charging the $0.75? Why are they compelled to break down the cost for the customer?

I'm not defending charging random fees, but besides that, what is the issue here?

@Tuuurd_Ferguson: I actually like it here, much as I complain about it. I have a minor obsession with Bombers mini tacos.

Meh. After a few bad experiences in areas unrelated to restaurants, I usually like to avoid these sorts of brokerage services, regardless of what they provide. I understand their purpose, but when they start getting involved with the transaction, or worse, taking a cut from the consumer, they've outlived their usefulness.

So, I'm in the Rutgers/ New Brunswick area and not one of the restaurants listed (that I looked at, approximately 16 ) had the $.75 charge listed. I might attempt to order from somewhere to see if it pops up unannounced.

@Laura Northrup: You want a real obsession, try bros tacos. Best Mexican food i've had in a long time.

"California Broccoli Pizza" is neither pizza, nor from California, discuss.

That service charge appears right under the credit card logos...

Report to VISA+MC.

Maybe I'm just different but I don't see the appeal of such a service. Is it really such a chore just to call the place up? Why do you need to use an online "mediator" like campus food to set it up for you?

@TheDayIsMine: hehe...or go down to the dorm lobby and look at the STACKS of menus around. One has to ask, how many trees died so that the chinese deliveryman can leave a stack the 10 times he comes an hour?

Or...I dunno, keep a menu every time you get take out...

@seattleperson: that the "client" companies didn't know that the 75 cents had been added on..

@Mr. Guy: Ditto. Bros Tacos are great. Homemade and fresh!

@Tuuurd_Ferguson: Having gone to school in Troy, I would have to second you on Bomber's Burrito Bar. Not much to look at, but the food and atmosphere is fantastic.

@Nate128: I like it for complicated orders and to have documentation, since I don't have a fax machine.

@legwork: I'm not exactly sure how hearsay is a great "quotation" , this strikes me less as journalism than as griping. Many businesses are being forced to raise prices, few offer any compensation for said price changes. At least Campusfood is giving the customers something of value in exchange.

Hey, Albany, NY is not just a pot-holed-filled college town. It's my state's capital. It's the home of three-men-in-a-room (as in how laws get made). :-(

And we here in NYC have our own quantity of potholes. (Although today the NYC DOT came by and scraped my block's asphalt and tomorrow they are coming back to pave it - should be as smooth as a baby's bottom - until Con Ed decides they have to fix a pipe).

And we have lots of colleges too.

Ok, back on-topic: as others have said, collect your own supply of menus and call the joints directly. And use the aggregators' sites to look at the menus of places you don't have a menu for.

The reason I use Campusfood so much is because of Food Friendzy. I get money off my orders and it's generally much easier to order online than to do it any other way.

I'm not seeing the 75 cent service charge yet for University of Illinois. Maybe they're just testing it to see how students respond in a particular area?

@Corporate_guy: "This 75 cent fee makes zero sense. "

Really? Makes sense to me, they want more money.

@sponica: where does it say that? I see a quote that says that the restaurants didn't agree to it in their initial work with the website, but where does it say that they were not notified when it happened?

@Tuuurd_Ferguson: isn't it, i don't know, the state capital as well?

@ludwigk: Thank you for the much needed laugh. :D

I use campusfood, and not necessarily mind the fee. Granted I did notice it, but I just tack it to a convenience fee for placing an order online and not being bother to explain the street name, my name, what I want, what my card number is, etc. Also recently discovered delivery.com, more choices!

As a University of Pittsburgh student, I can tell you that I will stop using campusfood.com if this fee shows up when I'm back on campus next fall.

@bluewyvern: One persons "bad consumer" is another persons "resourceful college student."

@Taliskan: They try to deliver your food to me half the time, anyway.

I don't see the problem. It's cheaper than the $2 all the major pizza places charge to deliver.

@Nate128: At the place I work, we don't accept credit cards (it's expensive for us when most orders are below $6.00) so it's a way for people to use theirs without us having to pay the fees. It works out cheaper for us because we have a $15 minimum on deliveries.

@Nic Deese: You are still getting the two dollar fee in addition. Shows it in the picture

@jodles: It's difficult because a lot of people do not know whether or not the delivery charge (in the above case, $1.75) equates to a tip. I still tip a few dollars when this happens, but my roommate does not, because he is already paying at least $1-2 delivery charge + $0.75 fee.

Our solution? We stopped ordering through campusfood.

@nakedscience: Damn straight! We may be broke (and sometimes stoned), but it doesn't mean we're dumb. ;)

@Tuuurd_Ferguson: Agreed on Bombers, glad to hear it's still going strong (SUNY A alum, '98).
Mild Wally's wings and Bomber's huuuuge borritos are two of the few things I miss about Albany.
I lived on State St, right off Lark, and ate Bomber's all the time.
/ahhh nostalgia

@nforcer: Winning money off Food Friendzy is quite possibly the only incentive to use Campusfood

@wcnghj: Exactly. I happened to place an order through Campus Food for the first time in months a few hours ago and saw the service fee under the CC logos. I (wrongly) assumed that it was a credit card processing fee, not a processing fee in general.

I'll still use Campus Food for a variety of reasons, but this is pretty sleazy.