Campusfood.com provides University students with an easy and convenient way of ordering food from their favorite restaurants. And now a new Bars and Nightlife section will soon be added that will include the daily specials for local bars.

This addition to the campusfood.com Web site will be released on August 27, shortly after the start of school. This feature will only be available to a limited number of universities.

“We hand-picked universities where we saw the need to launch the pilot, Champaign being one of them, because we had a lot of campusfood.com restaurants there,” said Jay Moon, vice president of campusfood.com.

The daily specials of about 5-10 restaurants and bars on campus will be available with this new feature. It will include specials for entertainment, food and drink along with contact information and cover charges, explained Moon.

In addition to the Bars and Nightlife section, campusfood.com will also launch a seven-day special starting August 27. During this time, participating restaurants will offer certain menu items at the price of $1.99. Restaurants that have already committed to the promotion include D.P. Dough, Rosati’s Chicago Pizza, and Silver Mine Subs, Moon said.

Moon said the site originally began in 1997 out of the residence hall room of Michael Saunders, who was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania at the time. Saunders is now the president of the Web site.

“He was having trouble getting through to his favorite restaurants on campus, so he got fed up and started a Web site where he could send the order through the Internet and bypass the phones and busy signals,” Moon said.

Ten years later, campusfood.com has evolved into a national college network campusfood accommodating more than 300 campuses and 2,000 restaurants, operating seven days a week. There are about 21 restaurants in Champaign that use.com, Moon said.

Dennis Bosco, senior in Engineering, said he frequently uses the site and likes the convenience of ordering from his favorite restaurants through the Internet.

“The waiting is kind of crazy, though. Usually it’s 60 minutes, which seems longer than if you just call it in,” Bosco said.

Moon said companies that subscribe to the Web site turn to campusfood.com when it comes to marketing their restaurant’s products.

Ferhat Kosen, manager at Papa John’s, 106 E. Green St., said the restaurant’s participation in the campusfood.com Web site has significantly increased their overall sales.

The only drawback to the campusfood.com system is all orders come through the Papa John’s fax machine, not the Internet, Kosen explained. “It’s just a little inconvenient,” Kosen said.

Kosen said Papa John’s also relies on an online ordering system through the Papa John’s franchise. These orders come through the Internet rather than the fax machine.

Mood said the site also added a text messaging feature this past January. This allows students to save orders as a favorite, and then text campusfood.com with the name the favorite has been saved under. There is no additional charge for the text message.

“When you’re sitting in class and you’re hungry and class is over in 20 minutes but you want to be able to pick up your food before you get home, you can text it in … Then you can leave class, pick it up, and you’re all set,” Moon said.