Fast food, meet the Internet.

With the expansion of campusfood.com into the Eau Claire area, two highly utilized components of college life – cheap food and the World Wide Web – have been paired to offer students a convenient, cost-effective alternative to conventional food options.

“Online ordering is a new era,” said Robert Saunders, marketing associate for the company.

As a way to inaugurate this new era, campusfood.com will be giving away one free meal to every UW-Eau Claire student who submits an order through Oct. 3.

Free meals include a medium cheese pizza from Papa John’s Pizza, a whole philly cheesesteak sandwich from Quizno’s, a Boney Billy from Erbert’s and Gerbert’s Subs and Clubs or a medium cheese pizza from Mattice Pizzeria.

The service displays participating restaurants’ menus on its Web site, where students can simply point, click, and submit their orders. All participating restaurants have delivery service will a small or no delivery charge.

Some other area restaurants working in conjunction with campusfood.com include Boston’s Gourmet Pizza, Jimmy John’s and Pinang Cuisine.

As a way to entice students to use the service, campusfood.com will be offering occasional deals and discounts to its customers.

“We always negotiate with the restaurants to get special deals. There is always something offered through the website that the restaurants won’t be offering otherwise. For example, we might be able to offer a $2.99 medium pizza one week,” Saunders said.

The service appeals to students because of busy signals or miscommunications over the phone are no longer an issue, so you won’t get the wrong order, Saunders said.

Students also see other benefits to the service.

“I might use it if I didn’t have a car and they had a late night service,” senior Becky Olson said.

Junior Scott Wohlrab said the service would be nice for large groups.

“It would come in handy during study groups if a lot of people wanted different things,” he said.

Senior Silva Sergenian said the business would be handy to students who don’t eat campus food.

“If I lived in Chancellors and I didn’t have a meal plan, I would use it a lot more,” she said.

Campusfood.com was founded in 1997, serving the University of Pennsylvania, and has since expended to serve more than 250 universities across the country. Eau Claire is a part of the company’s most recent expansion. It is now the nation’s leading network of collegiate restaurants. The company provides service to more than 1,000 restaurants, connecting them to millions of college students, according to the company Web site.

For more information or to submit an order, visit campusfood.com.