By Greg Scharen
On a rainy day you may want to hang out on your couch binge-watching a new Netflix hit. However, once you’re on your third straight episode something usually happens – you get hungry. The last thing you want to do is leave the house just as the show is getting to the good part. In the past you could peruse some takeout menus and call a restaurant for delivery. But now, thanks to mobile apps, you don’t even have to leave your couch; food is just a few clicks away.
Ordering meals is just one more area where technology continues to factor into our everyday lives. With the rise of apps like GrubHub, DoorDash and UberEats, the food delivery service has changed.
These services go beyond the neighborhood Chinese food and pizza delivery allowing users to order from all types of restaurants. Fast-food eateries like McDonald’s and Wendy’s, casual dining chain restaurants and even local restaurants can be found on the mobile apps.
Rumson native Mike Davis didn’t want the nationwide apps to have all the business, though, so he started his own food delivery service, Jersey Shore Delivery. Davis has had online ordering on his mind for nearly 20 years.
“In 2002, I joined a group of people who were building a business called campus-food.com,” said Davis in the conference room of Jersey Shore Delivery’s headquarters above Val’s Tavern in Rumson. “The founder wanted to take the company nationally and that’s when I joined. I spent the next four years of my life traveling to every single college town in the country and knocking on doors and convincing them that they could get orders and drive revenue from the internet. It was an uphill battle back then.”
With 15 years working in sales at food delivery companies, Davis saw the perfect opportunity to give new revenue to local businesses in the place he grew up, the Jersey Shore.
“I thought, because I grew up here, I always wanted to bring what I’ve learned in my experience back to this area,” said Davis. He said he wants to help local restaurants and businesses run long-lasting, profitable businesses. “We launched about four weeks ago and are looking to expand.”
They currently deliver for 12 local restaurants, including Val’s Tavern, The Windmill and Woody’s Ocean Grille. The full list can be found at jerseyshoredelivery.com.
“We are excited to try something new to meet the growing needs and busy lifestyles of our customers,” said Steve Bidgood, co-owner of Salt Creek Grille in Rumson.
While most other food establishments teamed up with Jersey Shore Delivery to offer real-time ordering from their regular dinner menu, Salt Creek Grille focused on the catering menu for larger groups.
“Our regular dinner menu for delivery would stress my cook line at dinner service,“ explained Bidgood. “Our off-site catered menu items have always been very popular and we believe we can amp up our customers’ summer entertaining with the new delivery service.”
The process for most food delivery services is the same: hungry users visit the food delivery site or app to choose a restaurant, view the menu and place the order, which is relayed to the restaurant.
The delivery service employs the driver who picks up the food – checking to ensure accuracy – and places the food in an insulated delivery bag before heading to the designated location. In the meantime the user can view the delivery vehicle’s location to see how close their food is. No money has to change hands between the person ordering the food and the one delivering it because everything is paid through the app.
Users can pay by credit card or Pay Pal and are charged a service fee of about $2.99 an order; the restaurants pay between 20 and 30 percent of the total bill to the delivery service.
Competition with other providers didn’t deter Davis from starting Jersey Shore Delivery.
“It’s always good to have competition. The way we’re approaching the space is very different than the way that they are,” said Davis. “We are much more friendly to the restaurant partners, we charge half the cost of these other guys. That’s one differentiator.”
Davis went on to say how the familiarity and seeing the same four or five drivers can be appealing to customers. Davis completed a delivery himself recently from Tommy’s Tavern + Tap in Sea Bright, in his Toyota, with a child’s car seat in back.
He said the goal isn’t to try and take over the delivery app game but to keep the revenue here in the shore area and not across the country in Silicon Valley.
Working as a driver for a delivery service has advantages and disadvantages.
Michael Carter – a Dasher, as DoorDash calls them – has been delivering meals for the past two months. Carter started working with DoorDash to make extra money as a part-time second job.
“I like my experience to a point. It’s worth it when they have an additional $3 per delivery when it’s super busy. Sometimes it’s not worth it because of the traveling and no reimbursement for miles or gas,” he said.
But regardless Carter is still working as a Dasher whenever he can. The extra money makes it worth the lingering aroma of different foods in his car, he said.
Regardless of who is delivering the food, technology continues to evolve the way businesses operate. And competition for getting food to hungry consumers is tough; food delivery giant GrubHub is already available in over 2,200 cities nationwide.
