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Dinner Delivery where you live


markk

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I'm curious what the availability of not mere take-out, but delivery of dinner is where various Gulletteers live. I've been thinking of this because I see lots of discussions of people who cook ahead for nights when they won't be able to, and most of those times, I know I'll just go through the stack of takeout menus in my kitchen drawer and call one of them up and order dinner to be delivered. (It isn't great, trust me, but it's convenient.) Yet I'm told by friends in various places that this just is not an option in a lot of locales.

So I'm asking if where you live, there are places you can call and they will deliver dinner. Where I live is Northern NJ, not a mile from Manhattan as the crow flies, and while nobody will deliver from there, we still have a ton of options locally. Not just pizza and pizzeria "Italian" food, but no end of Chinese restaurants, Thai restaurants, Japanese restaurants, BBQ joints, Greek places, Middle Eastern places, Cuban/Spanish restaurants, Hamburger joints, and Diners that will deliver dinner 20-30 minutes after we call.

So my question is, where you live, do you have the option of "you ring, we bring"? I'm hoping to hear from Gulletteers in the USA and around the globe.

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Woman (noticing a large bowl of cut fruit): “How much is the fruit salad?”

Counterman: “Three-ninety-eight a pound.”

Woman (incredulous, and loud): “THREE-NINETY EIGHT A POUND ????”

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Markk when you really get into the Northern North Jersey area the pickings get slim. Where I live Dominos hangs up on ya.

We can though get Chinese delivery from the oh so tasty TINGS in Bloomingdale.

No pizza, no groceries, no deli, no booze.

tracey

oh yeah the supermarket is 6 miles away

The great thing about barbeque is that when you get hungry 3 hours later....you can lick your fingers

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Well, at home in Ireland nearly all of the hamburger, Chinese, Indian and pizza places deliver, except maybe some of the really upmarket ones. People, I think, would be far more likely to get it delivered than to go and get it (in the realm of take-out dining that is), unless they had to go out for other reasons. We don't have the same selection though, it's hard enough to find a sushi restaurant, let alone one that delivers! The choice is getting better though. We have drawers and drawers full of the little menus, they drop 'em though the letterbox AND put them in the bag when you get the food...like that, its about 40 mins from calling to delivery.

Over here in Madrid it's quite different. I don´t know about "real" Spanish people, but I have a feeling there is much less ordering from take-aways, with the possible exception of pizza. We have got a few pizza and Chinese (in the loosest sense of the word :sad: !) menus in the flat, but I wouldn´t know where to start. Many normal restaurants here (not the fancy ones, obviously) can be persuaded to make you up a take-away - you'll have to go and get it though!

Edited by Niamh (log)
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There's at least one crowd that will deliver from a number of "proper" restaurants too, giving a very wide selection. I've never used them, but I have their brochure at home and they seem to run the gamut. Can't remember their name off-hand, though.

Si

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Where I am in portland there's Delivered Dish

From the site:

It's easy to get Portland area restaurants' meals delivered to your office, home, or hotel! $6 for delivery from most restaurants to most zip codes; $20 minimum food order

They have quite a varied "menu" from different restaurants around town, ranging from wings to chinese to sushi. :) I had only used it when I was at a friend's place (I stay in the far burbs so they don't deliver to me :hmmm: ) and it was quite fast and the food arrived at a nice temperature. There's a lack of 24 hour places here though other than your generic denny's/Ihop and the like so no late night deliveries other than pizza.

------

When I'm in Singapore... there's Dabao.sg. I haven't used it yet but my friends have. They love it that they deliver up until 2am and you get all the local food (its a bit expensive, but that's what you pay for not wanting to step out of your house). And its only $2 for delivery. (You don't really tip in singapore either). On the other hand, there's quite a lot of 24 hour places that we can just walk to from where we stay.. no matter where we are cuz Singapore's tiny. :laugh:

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Here in Oahu, Hawaii, there's Room Service in Paradise, a service that provides delivery from about 50 restaurants. I've never used it.

(BTW, while pizza delivery is common here, I don't know offhand of any Chinese take-out place that provides delivery service.)

SuzySushi

"She sells shiso by the seashore."

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There's delivery in metro Prague--Indian, Japanese, Mexican, :wub: Italian, etc.. I think most places tack on a surcharge for each km you live outside of some range of the restaurant. I'd venture that mainly only businesspeople, expats, and anyone else making well above the average Czech salary are the ones using delivery.

I just throw on a sweatshirt and walk half a block to place a take-out order at our local Pakistani restaurant.

Come to think of it, since I do most of the shopping and cooking, I am the delivery service. Maybe I should raise my rates. :raz:

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[...]So my question is, where you live, do you have the option of "you ring, we bring"?  I'm hoping to hear from Gulletteers in the USA and around the globe.

Well, the East Village is practically the bellybutton of the Earth as far as delivery is concerned. In order to save money and get more exercise, I get takeout much more often than delivery, but I get good dinner delivered from Grand Sichuan St. Marks pretty often, sometimes from Congee Village (which is about 10 1/2 blocks away, so I tip the deliveryman well), sometimes from Teresa's. I have lots of other options if I want some other kind of food. The only time I totally struck out on delivery was when I was sick on Thanksgiving and tried to get lunch delivered. None of the places I called that were open were delivering, so I walked slowly to Cafe Mogador and got takeout.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Here in Englishtown, New Jersey (OK, not so exotic to you, but very exotic to us!) we have a number of feh places for delivery of American style Italian- my Kiddle's favorite is , believe it or not, a kosher pizzeria named Levy's. We also have a great deli that delivers called Jesse & David's. However, I admit that I adore this place the most :Sultan Wok! They deliver American styled Chinese and Japanese food, even in a snowstorm! I adore that in a restaurant! Plus, they have actually got excellent fish, sushi rice that is seasoned well, ginger salad dressing that we LIKE, rainbow dumplings, real hot & sour soup, well, it's NOT high end, but it is excellent fresh quality, and, did I mention? They deliver in snowstorms! Also, you can just go online and place your order, that's another plus... no guessing if they understand what you want, and you can keep track of your favorite items easily by saving them online. :wub:

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Of course, all the local pizza places here in Philly's Wash West (with a few exceptions) deliver. I think, but am not sure, that the all-night diner near me, the Midtown II, also offers delivery.

There are also two delivery services that deliver meals from several full-service restaurants, DiningIn and Entree Express. I don't know whether EE is still in business or not. DiningIn does business in four cities, including Philadelphia. From where I live, I can choose items from more than 70 eateries, including a few ice cream shops, a couple of diners, at least four Steven Starr establishments, most of the local outposts of the major restaurant chains that don't do takeout, and about five pizza parlors located beyond walking distance from me, on DiningIn.com. Entree Express has no online presence.

Sandy Smith, Exile on Oxford Circle, Philadelphia

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Here in Englishtown, New Jersey (OK, not so exotic to you, but very exotic to us!) we have a number of feh places for delivery of American style Italian-  my Kiddle's favorite is , believe it or not, a kosher pizzeria named Levy's. We also have a great deli that delivers called Jesse & David's. However, I admit that I adore this place the most :Sultan Wok! They deliver American styled Chinese and Japanese food, even in a snowstorm! I adore that in a restaurant! Plus, they have actually got excellent fish, sushi rice that is seasoned well, ginger salad dressing that we LIKE, rainbow dumplings, real hot & sour soup, well, it's NOT high end, but it is excellent fresh quality, and, did I mention? They deliver in snowstorms! Also, you can just go online and place your order, that's another plus... no guessing if they understand what you want, and you can keep track of your favorite items easily by saving them online. :wub:

We live not too far from you :) We've patronized the Matawan Sultan's Wok, and I wish I could give it the same glowing review. The food from the one closer to us, is a gamble, unfortunately. But the service is AMAZING! We once pondered the idea that they might have woks in their hatchbacks. We live a little more than 10 minutes from the center of Matawan, where Sultan's is, and the food would arrive in 20 minutes, piping hot. (Unrelated, but we also eat at Jesse and David's sometimes...fantastic sandwiches, great food, but we're too far for delivery.)

There are a lot of standard Chinese-American places, to pick from around here, though, and we found one that had more consistant food quality. Outside of that, there's pizza delivery places on every corner, and that's about it.

Once, we had a local Indian place that promised free delivery...after eating there a buncha times, we called up and tried to get them to deliver, and the guy actually argued with us, over the directoions that we gave him to our house. We wound up going to pick up the 'delivery'.

This area is REALLY devoid of any variety, for delivery. I would kill for some delivered Mexican, Vietnamese, or Thai.

Edited by Lilija (log)
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My sister lives closer to the Matawan location as well. It's nowhere near as good as the Englishtown location, but, yes, as you state, the service! Really nice to have that. Jesse & David has been delivering Friday night dinners to us for weeks. Antonio's in Marlboro has excellent pizza, and they deliver, but not to Englishtown. :sad:

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In Chicago, when you ring CEO Deliveries, they'll bring you pretty much anything you want. Some places, as you can see, will be better than others. I haven't tried it, so I have no idea how they prepare and wrap the food to travel well. If, indeed, they do.

Edited for grammar's sake.

Edited by hsm (log)
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Here in Korea, the usual pizza places (Domino's, PIzza Hut, Papa John's, etc.) deliver fast enough but are not 24/7 (like in the Philippines). Korean food/meals are delivered by restaurants and some eateries even are open 24/7. Once can order a myraid number of dishes from simple meals like dwenjjang-jjige, kalbi-tang, bibimbap, mandu dumplings, kimbap rolls, etc. There are also japanese places but usually deliver fried, breaded sutff like donkatsu, shrimp tempura, etc. although I haven't found one that delivers sushi.

There are also the koreanized chinese restaurant deliver with thier sweet black jajangmyeon noodles, spicy seafood soup, etc. You can also order huge meals like hot-pots where the restaurant would send a table-top burner, hotpot wok and all the fixings for your meal. There are also the boiled pork leg deliveries where slices of boiled pork leg come with baskets of lettuce, dipping sauces and side dishes.

What is really neat is that most restaurants would deliver your meals in actual bowls, plates, trays and even cutlery. No plastic stuff or disposable items here. The food is covered in saran-wrap and the soups come to your doorstep boiling hot. Condiments in little bottles are also included and all you have to do is pay, take your meals in, and then when you're done, set the dirty dishes outside. NO mess, no fuss and no problem. Aaaah, one of the perks of living here.

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Here in Oahu, Hawaii, there's Room Service in Paradise, a service that provides delivery from about 50 restaurants. I've never used it.

(BTW, while pizza delivery is common here, I don't know offhand of any Chinese take-out place that provides delivery service.)

I live in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

I've used RSIP and they're great! It gets pricey if you have to pay for your meal and the delivery fee (and tip) solo but if it's for an office order and the delivery fee can be divided, then it's pretty reasonable.

There's two Chinese places I can think of off hand that deliver (that are not a part of RSIP): California Wok in Ala Moana Center and a place in City Square in Kalihi (can't remember the name).

The pizza places that I know deliver: Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Domino's, La Pizza Rina.

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In the US: I live in a small college town, delivery options

include Chinese, several pizza chains, and some others...

In India: Bangalore - you name it, it's deliverable, round

the clock. Any cuisine, any time of the day or night!

Can get very expensive.

Milagai

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When I was in college in Long Beach, CA I worked for a company called Entree Express. They contracted with various restaurants for reduced rates. But, when the client ordered, they paid the full menu price plus a 3-5 dollar delivery charge. We then paid the restaurant the reduced rate and the client paid us the full price. I made great tips on top of the delivery fee.

I currently live in Podunk( pop 4k) and there is NO delivery what so ever( except the cardboard that is called pizza). Even if there was, there is nothing here even worth spending money on.

Edited by CaliPoutine (log)
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Here in Oahu, Hawaii, there's Room Service in Paradise, a service that provides delivery from about 50 restaurants. I've never used it.

(BTW, while pizza delivery is common here, I don't know offhand of any Chinese take-out place that provides delivery service.)

I live in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

I've used RSIP and they're great! It gets pricey if you have to pay for your meal and the delivery fee (and tip) solo but if it's for an office order and the delivery fee can be divided, then it's pretty reasonable.

There's two Chinese places I can think of off hand that deliver (that are not a part of RSIP): California Wok in Ala Moana Center and a place in City Square in Kalihi (can't remember the name).

The pizza places that I know deliver: Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Domino's, La Pizza Rina.

It's called Cybee's. No one delivers to Kaneohe, we're in a virtual wasteland for food

anyway over here! When our dog was dying we couldn't cook and we got sick of the

stuff avaliable for carry-out which is limited to say the least over here. I love

visiting my friend in Andersonville in Chicago, everything is available there! It's

pure delight to just stay in and enjoy each other's company and have food

delivered!

"You can't miss with a ham 'n' egger......"

Ervin D. Williams 9/1/1921 - 6/8/2004

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Back in the mid-90's, at the height of a very stressful (but successful) career in the apparel industry, I decided to chuck it all and start my own restaurant food delivery service in Northern New Jersey. It was much smaller business to manage than what I had been used to, so I figured it would be a no-brainer. Hah!

Despite the fact that people wanted the service and I had a group of 50 restaurants contracted to provide food, it was an incredibly difficult business to run. The biggest problem was finding and keeping drivers. This type of business is much more successful in a verticle area (think high rises in close proximity to each other and the restaurants). My drivers were putting a lot of miles on their cars. Most of them burned out (or their cars did) after a few months.

I hung in there for less than two years, cut my losses, paid all my bills (eventually), and gave up. It was probably the worst two years of my life. Last year, my 7 years of having to keep records was up and we had a big celebration as the shredding truck turned the last traces of the business to dust.

I haven't had food delivered since.

Marie

NJDuchess

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I live in Syracuse NY - a traditionally blue collar rust belt city that has had a rocky transition to a more tech and service based economy as our industrial manufacturing base eroded and withered during the 80's and 90's.

With a city of 150,000 and another 200,000 or so in all the outlying suburbs one might think we'd have at least a moderate market for a restaurant delivery system like the one Marie described upthread. But two different people have attempted to launch such a service locally and met with no success (both folded within a year).

I see several factors in this - applicable to this market and maybe or maybe not applicable to others:

1) The overall charges for getting dinner this way were relatively high percentagewise compared to the actual cost of the meals.

2) In a community like this many people want dinner from a restaurant specifically beause they want to get out of the house - not stay at home.

3) There is a perceived reduction in value because you're not getting the ambiance of the restaurant, service at the table or someone to do the dishes - yet by the time you pay the delivery charges and tip to the driver you're paying as much or more than you would if you ate out and tipped a server.

4) Upscale supermarket chains like Wegman's have a vast assortment of "meals ready to cook or heat" that are far less cost efficient than cooking from scratch but far cheaper than restaurant delivery. The quality - in some cases - is not nearly as good as what you'd get from the right restaurant but for most folks around here it's "good enough".

5) There's a perception - often correct because our brutal winters last about five months - that food suffers during delivery. It's just never going to be as good as it woudl be if you ate it in the restaurant.

This set of factors may also be a reason why the "make your own meals to take home" concept has done very well here during the year that it's been open.

We have a Make and Take Gourmet franchise locally that has done so well that the owners are adding another three or four locations locally. It's not appealing to me (on the rare occasison that I'd have time to assemble a meal I'd rather do it from scratch at home in my own kitchen) - but having spoken with people who use the service - I understand the appeal.

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And I'm about 50 miles north of Owen in a college town of about 8,000.

Delivery options here are pizza, Chinese, Thai, subs, and the local burrito/taco joint that leaves us pining for Chipotle. We live close enough to town that it's usually just easier for us to go out and get whatever it is that we're going to be getting, rather than waiting for them to deliver it to us. Or once we're going out, we might as well just go to the supermarket and get whatever it is that we need. (But ask me again when they close the major bridge across the river for replacement sometime next year.)

Our nearest Wegman's is a 40+ minute drive away, which significantly cuts down on the meals-to-go option in the supermarkets. The more local stores don't have even close to the same variety as Wegman's.

Did you say something about winters, Owen? It's ugly enough here that the university's actually cancelled classes today and tonight! Therefore, I get the unexpected pleasure of a morning with eG rather than a study session with the German textbook! :wink:

MelissaH

I live in Syracuse NY - a traditionally blue collar rust belt city that has had a rocky transition to a more tech and service based economy iin our industrial manufacturing base eroded and withered during the 80's and 90's.

With a city of 150,000 and another 200,00  or so in all the outlying subrubs one might think we'd have at least a moderate market for a restaurant delivery system like the one Marie described upthread.  But two different people have attempted to launch such a service locally and met with no success (both folded within a year).

I see several factors in this - applicable to this market and maybe or maybe not applicable to  others:

1) The overall charges for getting dinner this way were reltively high percentagewise compared to the actual cost of the meals.

2) In a community like this many people want dinner from a  restaurant specifically beause they want to get out of the house - not stay at home.

3) There is a perceived reduction in value because you're not getting the ambiance of the restaurant, service at the table or someone to do the dishes - yet  by the time you pay the delivery charges and tip to the driver you're paying as much or more than you would if you ate out and tipped a server.

4) Upscale supermarket chains like Wegman's have a vast assortment of "meals ready to cook or heat" that are far less cost efficient than cooking  from scratch but far cheaper than restaurant delivery.  The quality - in some cases - is not nearly as good as what you'd get from the right restaurant but for most folks around here it's "good enough".

5) There's a perception - often correct because our brutal winters last about five months - that food suffers during delivery. It's just never going to be as good as it woudl be if you ate it in the restaurant.

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

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