Students can now use The Hanover Green Card, a cashless system similar to Dartmouth Dining Service's declining balance plan, to purchase menu items from eight local restaurants.
Driven by student demand for an alternative to the College's dining services with the convenience of a charge card, Mitch Jacobs '94 developed a new system entirely separate from the Collegethat allows students to draw from a pre-paid account for off-campus dining and delivery with a plastic card, a photo ID and a signature.
Unlike the College's Valedine cards, the Hanover Green Card operates year round, including interim periods and terms students are off. Students must pay a $10 service fee each term, a $75 one time deposit and start with a $150 minimum in their account.
With the $10 per term fee, members will receive a discount book offering more than $35 worth of savings from participating restaurants, including coupons for a free slice of pizza at Sabino's Pizza with each new card and a free second entree at Lou's Restaurant.
Restaurants will be informed of updated account balances several times each day and students are not allowed to charge any more than is in their account. Money can be deposited or withdrawn and accounts frozen at any time, Jacobs said.
Jacobs said he anticipates the hardest task will be "breaking into the student mentality that their lives are run according to 10 week periods." Students can sign up during the middle of a term or even when they are not enrolled.
The restaurants currently accepting the card are The Bagel Basement, The Dirtcowboy Cafe, Everything But Anchovies, Lou's Restaurant, Panda House Delivery, Q's of Chicago, Sabino's Pizza, Stinson's Village Store, and 5 Olde Nugget Alley. Jacobs said the card is not exclusive; he approached all the restaurants in town and any local restaurant can join at any time. He is currently negotiating with Moe's Deli, Murphy's Tavern and Panda House Take Out.
Students will be subject to limitations on the amount they can charge during different meal times and will face a fine if they exceed the maximum.
Members can use the card at several participating restaurants during each time period. For example, a student could charge a pizza from EBAs for dinner and then stop by Stinson's for drinks and snacks on the way home, as long as the total purchase does not exceed $30.
Jacobs said the limits will probably disappear when the system becomes automated, with the addition of magnetic strips like those on the back of major credit cards, an advance he said he hopes will happen by Winter term.
Although the system seems similar to using cash or writing a check, Jacobs said parents might be more inclined to set up an account they know their children can use solely for food.
Pamphlets, which include applications for the card, will be available on campus and in the restaurants this weekend when most sophomores' parents come to visit.
DDS Director Pete Napolitano said there have been off-campus declining balance cards before, specifically when a '90 put out the Cooperative Card three years ago, but all the previous attempts failed.
Jacobs said he already sunk more than $2,000 into The Hanover Green Card, Inc., mostly on paper goods and the cards, which cost roughly $1 each to make. But he said he plans on making a small profit from billing establishments a five percent service charge.
Though it does not offer a punch system or the capacity to charge purchases to students' college bills, The Hanover Green Card is in direct competition with DDS.
"Competition doesn't bother me," Napolitano said. "What would bother me is if we can't be there for the students." He said DDS would have to limit hours and restrict offerings to avoid losing money were its business to suffer because of an outside competitor.
Jacobs started setting up The Hanover Green Card, Inc. at the beginning of Spring term and did not contact anyone at the College during the process.
Since Jacobs will be a full-time student Fall term, as he was in the spring, he said he is looking to hire several other students.
Jeff Johnson '94 is the only other person who has been actively involved in the company from the start. Johnson helps with marketing and has been there to "bounce ideas off of without spreading the word too much," Jacobs said.
After graduation next year, Jacobs said the company, assuming it is successful, will remain active, and he might pursue the expansion of The Hanover Green Card, Inc. to other college towns.
