It is probably common knowledge to really anyone who has ever known or been a college student they they love free shirts and discounted stuff, primarily food. Example: Tonight my friends and I went to get dinner and found out one of us had a few 1/2 off anything coupons. We all picked the most expensive entry on the menu, which of course came with a t-shirt. We were stoked. We are not even college students, but I guess being recent college grads in a college town is close enough.
It really is amusing to watch a college student’s eyes light up with the words “…and you get a free t-shirt if…”. It doesn’t seem to matter what comes before or after that statement. I mean there are boundaries, but honestly if you are trying to seduce college students to go somewhere or do something invest in some t-shirts. I recently donated about 14 t-shirts from my college days and I guarantee I have another 10 hiding around here that I ended up keeping. I mean if there was not a free t-shirt offered there had better have been free food.
I stopped counting the times we attended local events just for the free or discounted food they were providing. I impersonated an engineer for a free hot dog once… Sometimes we were not even hungry but the fact that the waffle, bbq, or ice cream was free meant we were going to eat it. My roommates and I even celebrated Costco Sunday. We went to Costco every Sunday whether or not we needed anything. Sometimes we bought one thing, but we typically went to inhale as many samples as we could. If we were not full from samples we always knew we could get a hot dog or slice of pizza with a bottomless soda for only $1.50. I guess it was a survival mechanism. I am not really sure.
I suppose grand openings are a combination of free t-shirts and deals, so the obsession kind of makes sense. However, interestingly enough today at In-N-Out’s grand opening, there were neither. In-N-Out-Burger opened today in Arroyo Grande. Despite that there is one 20 miles north and 26 miles south of this town (making them not much farther from surrounding towns), the place was packed… with young college student type people. I mean I guess the deal is that the food at In-N-Out is already pretty cheap? Who knows. Then again there is not a solid explanation for my roommates standing in the pouring rain for 4 hours for regular priced burritos when Chipotle opened a while back. I would have been there myself if I had not somehow gotten in the day before with some special coupon from another friend. It is just interesting to me that grand openings pull such high attendance among college students. Maybe it is not grand openings? Maybe it is that I live in a college town and any event will be packed with college students? Maybe it is just In-N-Out and Chipotle? They do maintain a large population of die hard fans around college student age… I really don’t have any sort of conclusion or answer for this. However, I do have a pile of coupons that I plan on using this weekend.
November 20, 2010 at 8:15 am
Never knew that you could get free clothing at restaurants! Very funny stuff
November 19, 2010 at 1:28 pm
samples are the one and only reason i ever go to costco.
November 19, 2010 at 10:06 am
SO true!! I had a pile of shirts that were hard to get rid of, even though I never wore them, because they were free! And the Costco Sundays is definitely a college survival mechanism =)