Grubhub, a web commerce platform for ordering and delivering take-out food, is coming to Owensboro and will be providing delivery services for a number of restaurants in early February.
Grubhub’s website says their company’s mission is helping customers find and order food from wherever they are. Customers will type in their address and Grubhub will reveal the restaurants that deliver to that locale, including any pick-up restaurants in the nearby vicinity. Customers can search by cuisine, food item or restaurant name and receive a filtered list of restaurants that meet customers’ requests.
Orders can be placed either online or by phone at no cost to the customer.
Andrea Sullivan, chief client and marketing officer at VaynerMedia in New York says the process of implementing Grubhub in the Owensboro area has been smooth.
“We’ve had good reception. There are quite a few restaurants that will be using Grubhub in this area,” she said.
Sullivan said it will take another seven to 10 days before local restaurants begin using Grubhub’s delivery service.
“We want to make sure we have enough drivers and that everything is in the right place,” Sullivan said. “We’re very excited to be here.”
Louis Hayes, food and beverage director at Burger Theory Owensboro, confirmed that his restaurant will be using Grubhub’s delivery service.
“They’re setting up the menu right now, and we should go live in the next few days,” Hayes said.
A spokesperson at Grubhub’s corporate office in Chicago couldn’t confirm how many restaurants in Owensboro will be using Grubhub, or which restaurants specifically, but did say his maps showed a wide area in Owensboro that would be using Grubhub’s services.
Grubhub will be joining DoorDash, another large-scale ordering and delivering food service, which launched locally in Owensboro on Jan. 23. A spokesperson for DoorDash said some of the restaurants offering DoorDash include Five Guys, Mendy’s Kitchen, Wendy’s, Fazoli’s and Burger King.
A manager at Five Guys said delivery service for their restaurant would be up and running through DoorDash by Feb. 20.
The spokesperson for DoorDash said customers who use DoorDash can receive a $1 discount on delivery fees for all orders over $15 in their first month. New users can also use the promo code DASH12319 for $5 off their first order of $15 or more.
The spokesperson at Grubhub said their company’s success in Owensboro will depend largely on whether Grubhub can keep enough drivers staffed for delivery needs. Jonathan Brandle, founder and co-owner of Owensboro’s local food delivery business, Big O Takeout, agrees that maintaining delivery drivers is one of the most difficult aspects of running a food delivery service.
“We were doing really, really good with our reviews, but we got slower because we got so busy. Competition is a good thing in that aspect,” Brandle said. “Owensboro is a lot bigger than people think. Every small business has trouble with employees, and it’s the same with us. We have trouble keeping drivers.”
Brandle said there are both good and bad aspects of having a delivery “giant” like Grubhub enter the local playing field.
“We kind of anticipated it [the bigger companies coming into Owensboro]. We knew it was going to come eventually,” Brandle said. “They come in and a lot of times take the big corporate accounts. They have a huge footprint, whereas we have a smaller, local footprint.”
However, Brandle said there’s a chance that Big O Takeout and Grubhub could work together by alleviating some of the demand put on each of the businesses. While Big O Takeout does have 80 drivers on their rotation, not all drivers are available at needed times. Brandle believes local businesses like his can survive in the industry if they continue putting the customer, and the restaurants they deliver for, first.
“Our goal, at the end of the day, is we’re an extension of the restaurant. All these restaurants have reached out to us — even the ones with corporate locations — and, so far, they’ve all decided to stay with us,” Brandle said. “They like our service because it’s more hands-on. We actually have live dispatch. Other companies use technology. We’ll tell you, ‘Hey, we’re backed up, short on drivers, it’ll be a 30 to 60-minute wait right now.’”
Editor’s Note: The article has been changed from the original.
“We expected them coming in eventually, but we do offer more local service and can provide real person to person experience for our customers and restaurants which is something our competitors can’t provide,” said Devin Taylor, a co-owner of BigO Takeout.
