Why we built it
BU's dining hall menus live on separate sites in different formats, which makes it hard to find a meal that fits your diet, especially if you have allergies or dietary restrictions. BU Big Backs pulls every hall's menu into one app so students can search, filter by allergen and diet, and see what other students love. It also gives dining staff data on how well each hall serves students with dietary needs.
It covers the three Fresh Food Co. halls: West Campus, Marciano Commons and Warren Towers.
Features
| Feature | Where |
|---|
| Search and filter every dish on campus by name, hall, meal, station, diet (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal, Cool Food) or allergen | / |
| Dish details: description, ingredients, nutrition facts, allergens and student comments | /dish/:id |
| Most loved dishes: tap the heart to like a dish; the home page ranks the favorites | / |
| Near me: what's being served at the closest halls, matched to your restrictions | /near-me |
| Dining hall stats: compares halls on dietary coverage and nutrition over time, so staff can spot gaps | /stats |
| Anonymous feedback: rate a meal, comment on a dish or request a new one | /feedback |
| Hall forums: anonymous threads for each dining hall | /forums |
| Profile and settings: dietary restrictions, allergies, home hall and meal plan | /profile, /settings |
| Google sign-in through Supabase Auth | header |
Tech stack
- Frontend: TanStack Start, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui
- Database and auth: Supabase (Postgres, Google OAuth), migrations managed with Drizzle
- Backend API: Python standard-library HTTP server, with pandas and numpy for the menu analysis
- Data source: BU's public Dining API
Project structure
BU-Big-Backs-v2/
├── backend/
│ ├── server.py # JSON API + daily menu poll
│ ├── dining_poller.py # pulls a 7-day menu window into backend/data/
│ ├── collect_menu_dfs.py # menu snapshots → dataframes
│ ├── marciano_json_to_df.py
│ ├── dining_diet_analysis.py # per-hall diet and nutrition summary (/api/stats)
│ ├── API.md # full API reference
│ └── start.sh / start.bat # sets up a venv and starts the server
└── frontend/
├── src/routes/ # one file per page (file-based routing)
├── src/components/ # DishCard, SiteHeader, shadcn/ui
├── src/lib/ # API client, halls, profile, auth, stats helpers
├── src/assets/ # logo
├── public/dishes/ # dish photos
├── drizzle/migrations/ # Supabase database setup
└── scripts/ # dish image generation
Getting started
You'll need Python 3 and Bun.
1. Backend API
cp .env.example .env # at the repo root; set API_KEY to your BU Dining API key
cd backend
./start.sh # Windows: start.bat
start.sh creates a virtualenv in backend/.venv, installs requirements.txt and starts the API on http://localhost:8000. On startup, and then once a day, the server polls BU's menus for today plus the next 6 days into backend/data/.
2. Web app
In a second terminal:
cd frontend
cp .env.example .env
bun install
bun run dev # http://localhost:8080
In development, Vite proxies /api to the backend on port 8000, so leave VITE_API_URL empty.
| Command | What it does |
|---|
bun run build | Production build |
bun run test | Run the tests (Vitest) |
bun run lint | Lint with ESLint |
bun run images | Generate AI dish photos (needs POLLINATIONS_KEY in frontend/.env) |
Google sign-in (optional)
The app works without signing in. To turn on Google sign-in, create a Google OAuth client, add https://<your-project>.supabase.co/auth/v1/callback as a redirect URI, then enable the Google provider in Supabase under Authentication → Providers and add http://localhost:8080/** to the redirect URLs.
API
| Endpoint | Returns |
|---|
GET /api/health | Service, poller and data status |
GET /api/metadata | Filter options: halls, campuses, dates, meals, stations, diets |
GET /api/menu | Filtered menu rows (?group=true nests by hall → meal → station) |
GET /api/items/{location}/{item_id} | Full item detail (?allergens=true adds allergens) |
GET /api/stats | Per-hall dietary and nutrition summary |
See backend/API.md for every endpoint, filter and config option.
Security
Keep real keys in .env files and never commit them. The BU Dining API_KEY and POLLINATIONS_KEY are secrets; only the Supabase publishable values in frontend/.env.example are safe to share.
