WASHINGTON — Order2Eat has been offering restaurant delivery service in central Illinois since 2007, more than half a decade before national players like DoorDash and Uber Eats.
What began as a convenience for local restaurants became a necessity last year when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented restaurants from offering indoor dining.
Delivery is an increasingly crucial option
Indoor dining has returned, but delivery remains crucial, say three Washington clients of Order2Eat who have used the locally owned service since before the pandemic.
“Having Order2Eat deliver for us is more economical than hiring a driver and paying for a car and insurance,” said Sherrie Lucas, owner of Brickhouse BBQ, Burgers and Brews.
Lucas said Order2Eat gets 25% of a Brickhouse customer’s bill on a delivery.
“Say a customer buys a hamburger from us for $10,” she said. “I get $7.50 of that, and Order2Eat gets $2.50.”
Bernardi’s owner Stephanie Bernardi-Brott said carryout and delivery represents about 40% of her sales, with Order2Eat accounting for about 15% to 18% of that.
“When we offered only carryout and delivery, Order2Eat was about 25% of those sales,” she said. “We were comfortable with that because they’re very professional.”
Dena Stutzman doesn’t own a restaurant. She owns Aunt Dena’s Bakery. But the service has been important to her, too.
“Especially during the lockdown last year,” she said. “We didn’t close, but people weren’t coming in to see us.”
Local service stands apart from national companies
Order2Eat faces stiff competition from national restaurant-delivery companies that have come on the scene in recent years.Your stories live here.Fuel your hometown passion and plug into the stories that define it.Create Account
Lucas, Bernardi-Brott and Stutzman each said they used national delivery services and weren’t happy with them.
“They’d say they’d be here in 30 minutes to pick up an order and it would be two hours,” Lucas said. “We had to remake orders. Customers got mad at us.
“Order2Eat drivers are here within 20 minutes after an order is placed, sometimes earlier. If we’re super busy, their driver will call their dispatch center and let them know that deliveries from our place will take longer than usual so customers will know.”
Stutzman said she often couldn’t get in touch with drivers from national delivery companies and “they didn’t understand that we can’t prepare a decorated cake in 10 minutes, or that it takes a few hours to bake 35 cinnamon rolls.”
‘We need those restaurants to thrive’
Washington resident Rich Edwards has been with Order2Eat for 12 years. He’s a company co-owner, marketing rep and driver.
Edwards is an unabashed cheerleader for the restaurants he works with.
“We’re not all about delivery at Order2Eat,” he said. “We can’t do what we do without our clients. We need those restaurants to thrive. If people go to a restaurant and eat there because of what we’ve delivered, that’s great.”
Edwards said Order2Eat deliveries didn’t pick up substantially when the pandemic first hit because restaurants were struggling to adjust to a new world.
“Things are somewhat better for us now because people are going to restaurants, keeping them busy, and people know there are options like delivery and carryout,” he said.
Order2Eat customers are charged a convenience fee in addition to the food cost.
The fee, which ranges from $3.99 to $10.99, is based on the distance from a restaurant to the customer.
How did Order2Eat get started?
Waylon and Melissa McFeeters launched Order2Eat 14 years ago after Waylon McFeeters took a buyout from his job as a firefighter in the Air National Guard.
The husband-and-wife team started the business to give locally owned central Illinois restaurants a delivery system that some chain establishments already had up and running.
An Order2Eat website was set up within months after the business began.
“Before Pizza Hut or Domino’s had an online ordering system, we had ours in place,” Waylon McFeeters told the Journal Star in a 2016 story.
Order2Eat has 73 restaurant clients in the Peoria area, 35 in the Quad Cities area and 30 in the Springfield area.
Restaurants in Dunlap, East Peoria, Peoria, Peoria Heights and West Peoria also use the Order2Eat service locally.