Chez Bob (pronounced 'SHAY bob', or if you're a word nerd, /ʃeɪ bɑb/) is a 24/7, fully student- and volunteer-run snack and coffee co-op. We purchase snacks from Costco and sell them to graduate students, faculty, and staff. Chez Bob works like a bank. Users have accounts with balances. You pay by scanning what you take, which deducts from your balance. You can make deposits with cash at the kiosk.
Chez Bob sells the following items:
In addition to the food and drink that's for sale, there are also lots of free things in the Chez Bob room that students can take advantage of:
In order to use the espresso machine, you first need to be trained to ensure you know how to operate it properly. For the current training times, please reach out to whoever is listed as the "Espresso Executive" on the team page.
People often leave any leftover food from events on the counter in Chez Bob, so check the #chezbob channel in the CSE Slack for any free food announcements! If you're not part of the CSE slack, please email chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu to be added.
Please either send a message in the #chezbob channel in the CSE Slack, or send us an email at chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu.
The following CSE members are eligible for Chez Bob accounts:
Overall, in order to get a Chez Bob account you need to have a CSE professor who can take responsibility for you, so we have someone to contact should any issues arise (e.g. excessive debt, stealing, otherwise misusing Chez Bob). This means that in general, undergraduate students are not eligible for Chez Bob accounts. The only exceptions to this are undergraduates doing research with a CSE professor, or undergraduates tutoring/TAing for a CSE professor. In those cases, you will only have access to Chez Bob while you still hold that position (i.e. if you only tutor for one quarter, your Chez Bob access would end at the end of that quarter).
First, make sure you are eligible for a Chez Bob account. Second, make sure you don't already have a Chez Bob account-- we automatically create new accounts for incoming grad students, faculty, and staff every fall. If you are eligible for an account and don't already have one, then please email chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu with your name, UCSD email, and CSE affiliation (grad student, faculty, etc). If you are an undergraduate, please also CC the advisor who can "vouch" for you (your research advisor or the professor for the class you tutor).
We want to make sure that all Chez Bob members can be contacted in case of any account issues, security advisories, excessive debt, etc. This means that we need to check that everyone requesting an account is a UCSD and CSE affiliate, and has (or is) a CSE faculty member who can be contacted if we need to escalate an issue.
Go into Chez Bob (CSE 3154) and click the "Manual Login" button. Try using the first half of your UCSD email (e.g. 'chezbob' if your UCSD email is 'chezbob@ucsd.edu') and a blank password to log in. If that works, congrats! You have an existing Chez Bob account. If not, please request an account.
First, log into your account on the kiosk. Then click the "Account Management" button, and from there, the "Add NFC login card" button. You will then be asked to tap your NFC login card (UCSD ID, AirTag, etc.) on the NFC reader.
First, log into your account on the kiosk. Then click the "Account Management" button, and then the "Change Password" button. From there you should be able to enter your old and new password.
Please email us at chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu and we can reset your password.
Yes, you are allowed to have a negative balance (go into debt) on your Chez Bob account. The reasoning behind it is we'd rather have people accrue debts that they can pay later, rather than have people stealing snacks/drinks because they really want the snack now but don't have cash on them. However, there are rules for how much debt you're allowed to carry (see below).
Debt should be kept under $20.
We will check debts every Monday and the first Monday you are over $20/$40 of debt will be the starting day for counting how many weeks your debt is over $20/$40. Mondays will also be the day that the punishment is enacted-- e.g. if Monday the 1st is the first Monday your debt is over $20, on Monday the 8th (a week later), you will receive an angry email and be shamed in Slack.
Log into the kiosk in Chez Bob, and insert cash into the bill acceptor while logged in to add money to your account. If you have been locked out of Chez Bob for excessive debt, you will have to contact one of the Chez Bob admins to let you in so you can pay your debt (contact info here).
You still are responsible for paying your debt even if you graduate or otherwise leave San Diego/UCSD. Please email us at chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu and we can figure out a solution for your individual situation.
Glad you asked! Since Chez Bob is entirely volunteer-run, there are lots of ways to help, including:
If you're interested in volunteering or have an idea for Chez Bob, please join the #chezbob-volunteers channel in the CSE Slack for more information.
There's no binding commitment or required number of hours to volunteer, we're pretty flexible since we know volunteers are also busy graduate students :). It's totally cool if you need to take a few weeks off of volunteering to work on a paper deadline or attend a conference, for example. If you can't volunteer on a regular basis, you can still help out with one-off tasks (unloading a Costco order, fixing the TV in Chez Bob, etc.) or take part in our quarterly hackathons that we announce in Slack.
If you have a new idea for Chez Bob, silly or serious, we're totally willing to try it out as long as you're willing to be responsible for it! In the past, students have taken charge of things like ordering specialty snacks/drinks that Costco doesn't carry, setting up collaborations with the Food Recovery Network to deliver more leftover food, upgrading and refurbishing the pool table, and more. Depending on the idea, we can also provide some funding (i.e. like paying to refelt the pool table).
First, log into your account on the kiosk. Then, while logged in, feed cash into the bill acceptor and it will be added to your account. ONLY PUT BILLS INTO THE BILL ACCEPTOR, DON'T PUT ANY COINS :(
Unfortunately, no. The only way to add money to your account is by putting cash into the kiosk. There are lots of 'fun' fees and regulations associated with adding credit card support, which is why we only do cash.
Chez Bob funds itself, and does not receive any payment or funding from the CSE department. Costco orders are paid for with the money made from selling snacks and drinks. This means that it's very important to pay your debts and refrain from stealing, since that leaves Chez Bob with less money to order more snacks and drinks.
Generally yes, with a few caveats:
If you want us to stock a specific item that Costco doesn't sell, as long as you are willing to be in charge of ordering it and bringing it into Chez Bob to be stocked, then yes. We can reimburse you directly, usually within a day or two of sending us the receipt. We ask people to order their own special request items to avoid adding on more responsibilities to existing volunteers :).
We have tried in the past to stack "healthy" items like fruits, vegetables, yogurts, etc., but often these items did not sell quickly enough before they went bad. If there's a lot of support for ordering fresher food, we can try it out again and see if the food gets bought in time.
Assuming you have set a password on your account (instructions to set a password here), your password is hashed and salted before being stored in our database. You can also view the full Chez Bob infrastructure source code here.
Yes, as long as we still have money left in our board game budget! Each academic year, we allocate $100 for buying new board games. Please reach out to us in the #chezbob channel on the CSE Slack, or via email (chezbob@cs.ucsd.edu) to check how much money we have left for the year!
Find the answer on our history page!