Last week brought in the most money for Burt Shapiro's restaurant since he bought the suffering calzone eatery in August.

And he says it's the result of giving away more than 1,500 free calzones.

Shapiro credits the turnaround of D.P. Dough, 986 Trowbridge Plaza, to campusfood.com's recent free-food promotion, which offered registered customers one free menu item from local restaurants.

Managements of the four restaurants that participated say they are pleased with the giveaways and the sales numbers since then, albeit for different reasons.

Josh Ray, manager of Sidestreets Deli, 605 E. Grand River Ave., hoped to receive 20-30 free-food orders daily, but averaged 40 a day during the two-week promotion, and has since had an almost 12-percent daily increase in sales.

"We have a solid 75-80 percent return rate," he said. "So we just wanted to get the food down people's throats."

The Pita Pit, 219 E. Grand River Ave., has had 25-30 percent more deliveries since Oct. 28, when the free food stopped flowing, after giving 400 more freebies than owner Brent Curtiss anticipated.

"Even during the promotion, our in-store business was up," he said. "It's amazing the number of people who are eating because they tried the free food."

Employees of Pizza Hut, 135 E. Saginaw St., were slightly overwhelmed by the more than 100 orders for free pizza they received daily.

"There's a lot of options on campus for pizza," assistant manager Chris Douglas said. "Getting them a free pizza is a reminder that we have very good pizza."

At D.P. Dough, the promotion tripled the number of orders received in the two week period.

Besides increasing sales, these restaurants had varied reasons for participating with campusfood.com.

At The Pita Pit, "the product sells itself," according to Curtiss, and they needed more exposure on their existence, food quality and delivery availability.

"When people try it, the product is so good that it brings the customers back," he said.

Shapiro also said he used the promotion to gain more exposure and hopes to do as much business as other locations near college campuses. The restaurant sells one-fifth less than D.P. Dough restaurants in other college towns.

"We're hoping the people who get free food will come back and buy food from us," he said.

Douglas said Pizza Hut will benefit from the online-ordering option for its customers.

"I think our phones will ring a little less around here," he said. "A lot of the students have Ethernet right at their fingertips - it's easy for us and them."

New restaurants are joining the site to benefit from the online ordering even without using the free-food promotion.

Bell's Greek Pizza, 1135 E. Grand River Ave., had trouble with the free food after people assumed everything on the menu was free and several deliveries were refused.

"They ordered three pizzas and expected it for free," owner Habib Jarwan said. "There were problems of drivers fighting with customers."

But he likes the Web site, saying it will result in clear orders without explaining everything to customers.

Recently constructed New Dynasty Buffet - Oodles of Noodles, 1020 Trowbridge Road, also will join the site soon.