There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but two sophomores believe that University students can at least find good bargains on Nassau Street.
Jacob Bornstein '09 and USG vice president Josh Weinstein '09 recently launched Princeton Plus, a new USG initiative that lists restaurants and shops that offer discounts to Princeton students. The project will "function as a gateway between students looking to save money and local vendors who recognize the value in encouraging student patronage," according to its website, PrincetonPlus.com.
"We're using the University's prominent place in the community to get discounts for Princeton students in exchange for publicity," Bornstein said. "Now that the website is up ... we can show restaurants that offering us a little discount can be beneficial to them in the long run."
Lisa Ruddy, a manager of The Original SoupMan in Palmer Square, agreed with Bornstein. "We've been giving a student discount from the day we opened," she said. "The students are a huge part of our business."
USG members approached nearly every store in downtown Princeton about offering student discounts. "First we tried to figure out who already offered discounts to students, and then we asked the ones that didn't," U-Councilor Vincent Ley '08 said.
"It was a matter of taking the initiative to bargain one-on-one with the merchants," Bornstein added.
From the Princeton Plus homepage, users can access a list of restaurants that offer discounts, such as Ivy Garden and Mehek, or a list of shops such as Wild Oats and Origins. The savings range from five to 15 percent.
Some stores declined to participate. "Panera, [as] part of a national chain, wasn't able to give discounts at the time," Ley said.
The USG plans to publicize the website by an email notification to students and a link from the Point portal. "The onus is on the USG to let students know that there is basically free money out there," Bornstein said.
The USG plans to encourage other stores to offer student discounts. In addition, Ley said, "we're working on a 'deal of the week' program, where a store would offer a special discount for a short period of time."
Bornstein said that negotiations are underway to make prox swiping an option at certain restaurants. "You could charge things to your prox, and the restaurant would give some kind of discount," he explained. Some stores may consider this preferable to a general student discount, he added.
Ley encouraged students to visit the website. "People may discover that stores they go to all the time offer a discount they didn't know about."
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