A home* opener of our own.

We know what you’re thinking: Who are these guys? What happened to NDToGo?

Truth be told, we had to put NDToGo to sleep. Well actually, NDToGo went to go live on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. That’s not it either.

Here’s the story – NDToGo was great, but given the success and enthusiasm generated in the last month of school, we outgrew ourselves. Students began to get word of the idea at other campuses in Indiana and wanted to know when/how we could do the same thing there. We also decided that the “ToGo” moniker didn’t quite do justice to our concept. With the help of a lot of feedback from ND students, we began to really get excited about “taking back” the word Townie. We know what you’re thinking…town/gown relations in the Bend aren’t exactly at their best right now. Let’s get back to the word Townie…it’s kind of like the term Cougar; taking over America, one college student at a time.

What does the word Townie mean to you? Read some of the first entries of this blog to get our opinion. Basically, some of my best times were had in the hole in the walls, place like the Midway Tavern, which has live blues weekly and a personality to the place. Who told me about the Midway? None other than fellow Keenanite and renowned townie Chris “Stretch” Martin. The list goes on and on. We’ve got a dedicated following of people that are looking for more options in South Bend. Stay tuned to learn about how to become a Townie in your own right…be the one to take your sectionmates to an interesting Vietnamese restaurant in Mishawaka or impress a date with your knowledge of the ins and outs of the surrounding community. Spread the word, and if you share our passion, leave a comment on the blog and we’ll get back to you. And be sure to check our website (in progress) as we migrate from the old domain. www.collegetownie.com

NDToGo , CollegeTownie would like to extend a warm welcome back to campus!

*Homepage opener. CollegeTownie is the new NDToGo.

Study Break?

We were there with you…we know how stressful study days and finals can be.  So we’ve put together another week full of Freebies! to help give you the energy to study or the excuse not to – your pick.

Today, be sure to grab the $5 gift certificate to Indulgence Pastry Shop, no strings attached!  If you already won a Freebie! in the past week, tell your friend, neighbor or prof about it.  Signing up is free and takes no time at all.  Later this week, we’ll have some really high-priced Freebies! from our friends at NOMA and Siam Thai.  If you haven’t been to NOMA yet, you’re missing out on a sweet, modern and stylish addition to South Bend’s nightlife. 

That’s all for now – look for us at the Bookstore finals, where we’ll be handing out fliers and possibly some more Freebies!(.?)  And, in absence of our Bookstore team, (Team 14) we’ll be rooting for Paul Pogge and the rest of the Castle Point crew.  As always, thoughts, comments and suggestions are welcomed;  which restaurant would you like a coupon for?

First Freebie! launch a success!*

Wow. All of the Freebies! in our first round sold out in under 8 minutes!  That’s $1050/hr.  There’s still one round left today, and then 3 rounds daily at random times throughout this week and next.  Reminder: the first round always starts at midnight.  If you’ve already won, you can’t win again for 7 days…but that shouldn’t stop you from telling your friends.  Think about it – if they sign up and get the Freebie!, you not only get credit for their referral, but surely you can get a cut of their free food?

Thanks first goes to Rocco’s, who believed in us enough to give us enormous amounts of free food. 

Also – to our resident tech genius, ND grad (2003) eric “I sold out and got a mac” sendelbach. 

Props to the NDToGo street team: Maddie, Andy, Nick, Tom, Karol and Nancy.   

Last thing – NDToGo does not recommend going “cheap” on celebratory champagne [see price tag]. 

*Sorry for all the exclamation points, it’s getting old on our end too, but we made a committment…

NDToGo : Best in Show?

OK, so we didn’t win the Notre Dame McCloskey Business Plan competition on Friday.  We did, however get the highest vote total from judges among a pool of 13 non-finalists to give a 2 minute “elevator pitch” during the final presentations.  It was a great opportunity to tell everyone what the buzz is about and how we plan to help students and restaurants simultaneously.  Needless to say, we generated some excitement among the business school and competition community.  In case you still don’t know what we’re about, here’s a transcript of DJ’s 2-minute speech and the video as well.  Thanks for tuning in; see you at midnight TONIGHT.  Tell your friends.

 

“Students:  You’re Cheap, We’re Easy.

“Now, Charlie Weis will tell you that ‘Tradition Never Graduates,’ but it does in the restaurant business.  Think about it, you’re not going to the time-tested favorites of ND students in the past, you’re calling Papa Johns  because you’ve got their magnet on your refrigerator.  It’s easy and predictable.  One large pizza, $9.99.

“But if you were given a free pizza at Bruno’s, Rocco’s, Barnaby’s, Dominic’s…would you go there?  Have you even heard of those places?

“You see, restaurants in South Bend and Mishawaka face a dilemma; they want student business but don’t know how to get it.  Radio/TV/Newspaper…that’s not how you find a great barbeque place.  [Students] don’t even have phones in their dorm room, let alone phone books, yet restaurants pay thousands to advertise in the Yellow Pages.   Do me a favor when you get back: type in “South Bend Pizza” to google and see what you get.  5 chains, one location in Granger, no selection, no menus…and a discount?  Forget about it.

“NDToGo brings cheap, starving students to restaurants hungry for their business. We do so through coupons, giveaways and an unmatched, in-depth directory.

“Which cafes have free wifi?  What beers do they have on tap at Parisi’s?  Which joint [stutter #1] serves fried frog legs? (Joe’s Tavern does, by the way.)

“You will be able to search by event:  Is your family in town? – a.k.a which places serve steak…  Is it after midnight?  Find out which places are still open and what they serve.   Are you going on a date?  Sure, you know where grape road is, but [uh..stutter #2] what are they giving you to go there?  And haven’t you already been?  Be a real cassanova and find the hole in the wall [stutter #3] Italian joint on Mishwaka’s east side.

“We just started 3 weeks ago and we’ve collected $3500 in free food from 16 local restaurants that we’re giving away in the next two weeks.  We open up THIS Sunday night at midnight.  We’ve got 5% of the campus signed up so far on buzz alone.  You probably saw our article in the Obsever and we’re the 8th fastest growing blog on wordpress.com. [Out of over 877,000 total.] The more students we get signed up, the better deals we can get.  Did I mention it’s free? Tell 10 friends and we’ll give you $10 in pizza from Dominic’s over by the Backer.

“As a senior, I once spent 14 hours in a Mishawaka Chick-fil-a parking lot to get $300 in free chicken sandwiches.  I’m not above it.  [Hearty laugh by cameraman. Thanks, Mcnulty.] Restaurants WILL PAY to get you in the door, visit NDToGo.com to reap the benefits.  The first 30 people to see us outside the auditorium will get a special deal for being here.   Thanks to the Fish Taco Fund for helping us get started.”

Launch date announced: 4.23.07 @ 12:00:01

This Sunday night at midnight [Monday morning] we’re opening up shop.  It’s going to go like this:

Registered and authenticated users (did you click the link in the email we sent you “asdf@nd.edu”?) will login and have three opportunities throughout the day to win free food from our first sponsor, TBA.  The first Freebie! group will launch at 12:00:01 on Sunday night.  Check back throughout the day, because each round of Freebies! will include dozens of winners – to give you a better chance to win, our server a chance to rest and our nerves a chance to de-fray. 

You can only win once a week, so you can play the odds if you don’t like what you see, but we’re rolling 2 weeks deep for the initial launch blitz, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities.  All Freebies! are dine-in only. There are no tricks or strings here.  Restaurants want your business and we’re giving it to them. 

In the next couple of weeks, you’ll be getting free food from such local places as Club Noma, Chicory Cafe, Carmela’s at Macri’s and more.  Never heard of them? Neither had we…and they’re great.  Check out our ridiculous graphic on the site if you have time.  You’ve gotta do something to entertain yourself at 3am.

See you at midnight.

Free food promotion: back for seconds!

Last week’s referral promotion was an awesome success. Thanks to everyone who participated. We gave away $100 in free food to those who managed to get 10 of their friends to sign up.

If you missed it, here’s your chance to get in on the action. We’ve rolled out another referral promotion and this time there’s no limit to the number of winners. But, hurry, this promotion ends on Friday, April 20th. For more details on how you can win a $10 gift certificate, click here.

Also, our Bookstore Basketball Team plays again on Tuesday. Come out to Bookstore Court No. 1 at 7:15 p.m. and support NDToGo’s TEAM 14. Check back tomorrow for an update on Team 14.

Arby’s, NASCAR, and FREE Curly Fries

Here’s another FREE deal for all you loyal NDToGo-ers out there…

Every time NASCAR phenom Matt Kenseth wins a race (Nextel or Busch Series), Arby’s is giving away FREE medium Curly Fries the Monday following the race weekend. Just take a printed copy of the official race results from a newspaper or web site, or a free fry coupon from arbys.com, to participating Arby’s on “Matt Mondays” and redeem your free fries.

AND… It JUST so happens that Kenseth won this weekend! Free Fries for everyone today!

Read the press release here. Print the official race results from here.

“I’ve been a fan of Arby’s since I was a kid and Curly Fries are a big favorite,” said Kenseth. “This motivates me to bring it home for the fans.” And there you have it. When Matt wins, we all win.*

*If you like curly fries and free stuff. We know we sure do.

Free Chipotle Burrito*

*Quickly…if you buy a burrito yesterday (sorry) or today (yay), you get a free burrito tomorrow (tax day). More info.

Just bring in your receipt tomorrow.

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Mishawaka…more than meets the eye.

Hey – DJ here – one of the greatest things about starting this thing is that, no matter how many times I tell people that there is more to South Bend than meets the eye, every time I’m up in the Bend we find another sweet spot. Last weekend we were working hard to get in touch with a few restaurants who are pumped about giving out Freebies! to students. We started out at Ciao, which is right next to NOMA, and across from the South Bend Chocolate Company downtown. Ciao is one of those places that would be great to take the fam. They’ve got a backroom that seats a group of about 20 no problem. Their entrees are a little expensive…good for a date, probably not just for a casual meal. We quickly made friends with the owner, Adele De Rosa Ciao, who started out making Italian pastries for her friends until everyone forced her to open up her own place. Rudy and I gorged on pasta and free pastries (thanks NDToGo) and headed to our favorite: Midway Tavern.

There’s something to be said about walking into a bar and having the owner and bartender know your name…especially after you’ve been out of school for 2 years. The closest thing to that I ever got from the typical weeknight bars was the DJ at Finnigans telling me for the third time in a night that he would not play Scatman John. Anyway – Albertina (pictured in the Us. section of the blog) referred us to a new* spot: McKinleyPub. If you’re tired of the same places each weekend, try it. Few places that I know of can back up a claim of “Dyngus Day hotspot” like the McKinley Pub does.

*new, of course, being relative.

Things to come.

…and apparently you couldn’t agree more. We’re excited. The word is spreading about NDToGo. The last two days have seen record web traffic for us. Literally hundreds of new visitors are arriving daily and 30% of our traffic are repeat visitors…which means that once we start giving away all of the Freebies! that we’ve collected, it’ll be like chum in the shark tank. Thanks for coming and signing up early. Dominic’s Pizza, (right across from the Linebacker,) believed in us enough to donate $100 to get the word out. That’s less than 5% of the free food that we’ve gotten so far, so stay tuned.

Free food is great, and we hope that all students get a chance to try some places they haven’t in the past, but the bread and butter of NDToGo is how we can explore the South Bend/Mishawaka area TOGETHER. Found a sweet new Italian joint? Tell us about it. Went to a hole in the wall with good live music? Write a review. We’ll organize the restaurants and reviews so that you can find what you’re looking for fast.

Ever gotten the munchies past midnight and settled for the restaurant whose magnet is on your mini-fridge? Or from that mess of menus in your common area? We’ll have menus uploaded for each restaurant, prices, discounts…all in one place. Make your own decision…don’t let the restaurants make it for you. Look for more to come. In the meantime, let’s hear some feedback. Email, post comments, suggest additions, whatever. This is meant to be YOUR site, we’re here to facilitate – to make sure that you never order the Kung Pao Chicken again…or whatever the #4 turns out to be.

Keep spreading the word – and get ready to start something new very soon.