<p>To all you current UGA students or people familiar with Athens:</p>
<p>I would like to get a giftcard for about $50.00 for our friend. She will be a freshman at UGA this fall. I am hoping to find a place other than the UGA bookstore, Starbucks (by the way--is there one around--just in case?) etc. I would love to hear of a neat little smoothie place, or good bagel store, or even a fun casual restaurant somewhere near campus that kids seem to like.</p>
<p>Can you help? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>There's a Starbucks right in front of the Arch on Broad Street. A lot of students stop to get coffee there. However, if you wanted some place a bit different for your gift card idea and you wanted to stick with a coffee shop-type place, Jittery Joe's may be a good idea. Athens has several of them, including one right on the second floor of our huge Student Learning Center. Students often need to take a break for some coffee when studying there throughout the year (especially during finals! :) Another suggestion I have would be to charge her UGA ID card, which doubles as a Bulldog Bucks card, directly with the money. All students have to do is swipe their UGA ID at a number of vendors (including restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, you name it) and use their Bulldog Bucks like a debit card. The number of participating vendors increases every semester (it's currently around over a 100 I think), and they offer special discounts as well. I would say this is the best way to give your gift because then she would be able to purchase from tons of places, and not just be limited to one place.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.uga.edu/bulldogbucks%5B/url%5D">www.uga.edu/bulldogbucks</a> should contain all the information you need! :)</p>
<p>Thanks, green7. Appreciate the details! I like the idea of being able to use the giftcard at so many places. The only problem is that I am guessing that the UGA acct. needs to be set up in the first place...and I kind of don't want to get involved with all that--or have to ask the family questions about what their status is with setting up accts.
I was kind of hoping to just keep it simple...a graduation card with something fun inside. Maybe I'll do Jittery Joes--just to show them that time was taken to "personalize" the gift (so to speak). Thanks again. </p>
<p>I just read about a place called Gumbys. Also Little Italy. Are they popular?</p>
<p>You're right, her account would have to be set up first. I thought she may have already been to orientation :) Gumby's is a very popular pizza and Italian food restaurant. I think it's right on Lumpkin, near campus and the freshman high-rise dorms. Little Italy is right in downtown Athens, more of a convenient location I think, very popular with students for its reasonable prices in pizza. Uncle Otto's sandwich shop downtown, right on Broad Street, is one of my personal favorites. It's a German K-Bob sandwich shop with Belgian fries, Mmm :) I hope this helps!</p>