Residence students surveyed to identify restaurants of interest
Hamid Adem
Assistant News Editor
This fall, students will be able to use their YU cards at a number of off-campus eateries.
As of early October, the new program will allow students to use their Flex dollars to pay for meals and food delivery at select off-campus restaurants, including PizzaPizza’s delivery call centre; Mcdonald’s, located at Steeles and Highway 400; Boston Pizza, located at Weston and Highway 7; and Blueberry Hill, located at Petrolia and Steeles.
“I think it’s really smart because we do have a a lot of variety here, but living here all year, you get sick of the same thing and you want a little more variety,” says Alexia Boucher, a second-year visual arts major and Winters College resident. “Having the option is really good for the moments that I want something different. I think people [are] starting to complain, and they’re noticing that there is little selection on campus.”
Flex dollars, however, are different from meal plan dollars. Flex dollars can be used to pay for items aside from meals on campus. They can be used for
residence laundry machines, grocery or pharmacy items, printing or photocopying, and now purchases of food from select off-campus restaurants.
“We’ve heard, particularly from students in residences, that they want more delivery options available to them,” Anthony Barbisan, director of YU Card and Food Services says. “And we made this a priority when we considered improving the program.”
Only Flex dollars will be accepted at off-campus vendors as the regulations surrounding the Harmonized Sales Tax tax do not permit tax-exempt
meal plan dollars to be used at off-campus merchants, says Barbisan.
Barbisan says YU Card & Food Services had conducted a survey of students living in campus residences last April to identify which restaurants the students were interested in, that they’ve been working through that list of results, and are continuing to talk to additional vendors.
