No one likes to party alone, and now students can have a new friend to throw a couple back with. My Drinking Buddy, a new app created by University students, aims to help users find the best deals for drinks on campus. It may not be able to sit on a barstool next to you, but its goal is to provide a good time.

The free app alerts users about deals at the liquor stores Hometown Pantry, Den Liquors, Hollywood Liquors and Campus Liquor. It also advertises deals at campus bars, such as The Red Lion, Kam’s, Legends, Murphy’s Pub, Joe’s Brewery, The Clybourne, White Horse, Firehaus, Brothers and The Canopy Club.

“We have a good EatCU system here … but there isn’t really a thing for drinking. Everybody goes out here, everybody parties so we said, ‘Hey, lets put that on an application,’” said Neeraj Varyani, junior in FAA and co-founder of the app.

My Drinking Buddy has been a long time in the making. Varyani and Nicholas Garcia, junior in Business and app co-founder, thought of the idea in December of 2011. It was originally created as a trial run; however, they have been working on it since. The co-founders released the app to the public at the beginning of the 2012 school year.

Garcia said the app was only supposed to be a project, but as they started programming, planning details and making contracts with bars on campus, it became something bigger.

“We really see a lot of potential growth in the company and expansion across college campuses,” he said. 

The application has grown in popularity since its release. Varyani said 450 people have downloaded it so far, and 200 of those were in the last week. Kyle Wehrli, junior in Business, said the app is very user-friendly.

“My favorite part about it is it’s much more simple than most of the apps that are even out there. It is as easy as even playing a game,” Wehrli said.

Along with showing the deals that are on campus, My Drinking Buddy also partners with the liquor stores to give users reduced rates on alcohol.

Krishna Patel, general manager of Den Liquors, said, “We give people 10 percent off their purchase if they show us the app while buying alcohol.”

Varyani and Garcia are currently gathering more data on the usage of My Drinking Buddy on the University’s campus. Eventually, they would like to expand the app to big campuses across the country, starting with Midwest schools and branching out into the East and West coasts as well. Garcia has no doubts that My Drinking Buddy will catch on quickly.

“I mean, you know it’s a Friday night and you want to buy a nice bottle of Belvedere, and you want to find the cheapest place to get it on campus. You can look at the application and find it,” Garcia said. “If you want to find the cheapest 30 rack to play beer pong, go on the app and find it. It is extremely useful for anyone who wants to buy alcohol.”

With Illinois ranked as the No. 4 party school by the Princeton Review, the University might be the perfect market for My Drinking Buddy to take off.

Haley can be reached at [email protected]

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Nicholas Garcia is a junior in FAA. He is a junior in Business. The Daily Illini regrets this error.