Hungry Buffs has gained popularity around campus for offering food deals around Boulder. (CU Independent photo illustration/Ilana Finer)
Dan Rolland, a 21-year-old junior majoring in sociology, grew up eating New Jersey food. As a result, Rolland said he was less than impressed by the selection of food available to students living in dorms. So he decided to do something about it and created the Web site hungrybuffs.com.
“I saw it being done at another school, Penn State University, so I saw an opportunity there,” Rolland said regarding the online resource he created to provide the menus, specials and hours of local restaurants. The site also lists delivery and online ordering information.
Rolland’s first step, which he took during freshman year, was to go around and collect all the menus, numbers and addresses of restaurants around town. Using some money left to him by his grandfather, Rolland was able to buy the license for his Web site and set some money aside for future marketing.
“I was sitting in my dorm room and I had like 200 menus—it was actually very tedious,” Rolland said. He had to call every restaurant to find out their hours and whether or not they delivered. Then he had to scan every menu so he could post them online for free.
In order to get restaurants interested in collaborating to create an online ordering system, Rolland offered them free advertising for the first semester. He got about six or eight restaurants involved, trying to choose one of each type of cuisine.
From there he said it was just constant marketing, distributing merchandise (like t-shirts and lighters) and chalking the sidewalk around campus. The first week he went around to every room of every dorm telling people about the site, sometimes even showing it to them and ordering things for them.
After a while, the Web site became more well-known.
“We were starting to get traffic, and they were all doing respectably well, so they were happy and we were able to slowly build and get more restaurants to sign up,” Rolland said.
Now Hungry Buffs gets considerable business, and Rolland said he makes a considerable profit. Restaurants have to buy advertising space, and they can choose from different packages based on how much exposure they want.
Although he makes nothing when a student calls in with an order, Rolland gets six percent of each purchase made online. He doesn’t mind though; he doesn’t expect everyone to order online.
“A lot of people order online,” Rolland said. “But four out of five people who visit our site call in so that’s just business we’re bringing [the restaurants].”
Many students who use the resource appreciate the fact that orders can be placed online.
“I use it pretty frequently and find it convenient to just do it all online and they drop it off pretty fast,” said Paul Evans, a 20-year-old junior English major.
Other students agree.
“It’s a really good resource to find out who delivers and stuff,” said Danielle Norins, a 20-year-old junior communications and psychology major. “I only use it when I want to get food delivered and I’m just in with my friends. If we’re hungry we just go to Hungry Buffs and see what they have.”
According to Rolland, the menus and phone numbers for almost every restaurant in Boulder can be found on the site, even those who didn’t shell out for ads.
“It’s really helpful when I’m studying in my room and don’t want to go out to get food,” said Laura Vriesman, a 19-year old sophomore chemistry major. “It’s really convenient and it gives a lot of different options.”
Rolland’s next project is to create a happy hour page listing food, drink and entertainment specials during happy hour for every bar and restaurant in Boulder.
During Eat-Cheap Week, Hungry Buffs offers even more weeklong deals for customers who order online.
“I just used it for the Eat-Cheap Week; my roommates and I just ate pizzas all week,” said Dan Pagliarini, a 21-year-old senior advertising major.
Now Dan lives outside of Boulder, and he said he uses it less. “I used it a couple years ago, like my sophomore year; it was pretty cool.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Anna McIntosh at Anna.mcintosh@colorado.edu.
