Weekend nights at popular Perkins Road pizzeria Red Zeppelin see a steady stream of patrons waiting for tables or seats at the bar. The 24-spot parking lot is usually packed, and the drive-thru window, where patrons retrieve to-go orders, is bustling.
Drivers also come and go, arriving at the restaurant to pick up pizzas, calzones and salads to deliver to local homes. But the drivers aren’t employees of the restaurant, Business Report details in a feature from its latest issue.
They work for one of three different delivery companies with which Red Zeppelin partners. Two of the three, Waitr and Mr. Delivery, are regional companies that entered the Baton Rouge market last fall and are helping to expand the local app-driven restaurant delivery culture.
The third company, Lafayette-based Take Out Express/237menu.com, has been around since 1999 but recently added a customer app to its traditional call-in service.
“For me, not having to get into the liability and logistics of delivery is huge,” says Red Zeppelin owner Ray vanMerrienboer. “Pizza is such a natural fit for delivery. People want that option.”
It’s not just pizza they want. A growing number of third party delivery companies across the country operate by enrolling a wide variety of restaurants in a given region, making it easy for users to scroll through multiple options.
Some companies are going after niche markets, including San Francisco-based Tapingo, which is targeting delivery on college campuses. It launched on the LSU campus in January 2014.
The new wave of local delivery companies isn’t limited to those that connect consumers and restaurants. Baton Rouge has also seen an uptick in companies that deliver groceries. In 2014, two companies, Indie Plate and the Country Table, both sprang up with the promise of delivering fresh regional produce and other local foods. Country Table went out of business about a year later, but Indie Plate, which requires no minimum order, has grown significantly, says co-founder Ben Bartage.
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