Yo! Potato
Childhood friends Krishna Chidambaresh and Showkath Jamal recently crowned themselves the “food people”, who took new career paths and began an exclusive food delivery service Yo! Potato.
The point behind this start-up is simple; you only have to remember one number to order anything from any restaurant in and around the city. “We've realised that a lot of people want to order in, but are restricted to one restaurant because of the minimum order or basically because they must track many. Through our service, people can order anything from any restaurant. We can get you an ice tea from a café and a burger from another place, and deliver it together,” says Showkath.
Yo! Potato was started in November 2011, piloting in and around Nungambakkam. Recently, it expanded to other areas. “We're trying to look at the city in the form of clusters, and currently deliver in Nungambakkam, Alwarpet, Kodambakkam, Chetpet, and a few other places,” says Krishna. “Currently, a lot of companies use our services for placing bulk orders from different restaurants.”
Apart from restaurant-based food, Yo! Potato hopes to delve into a more cultural scene. “Recently, we began delivering birthday cakes, which is kind of tricky. But, we'd like to go beyond just restaurants, and tap into some culture-based food — such as basha hHalwa that you get only in a particular shop in Triplicane. We'll soon be connecting with small eateries that offer such signature dishes,” says Showkath.
Call Yo! Potato at 4554-1111.
StorElf
Inside white-painted rooms that have charts with colourful arrows running amuck on the walls, Sahil Gore and Siddharth Padmanabhan are the chief technology elf and sales manager elf. And, with their team of other friendly elves, they run StorElf, a food delivery service.
“Amrutash Misra and Sahil run StorElf under its parent company LifeOnline, which also powers iloveread.in. We started off in January because we had already worked on deliveries, and we thought we could use this experience to expand our business,” says Siddharth, while Sahil adds: “We were wondering what people need, and a lot of our library members were asking us about food delivery and we thought ‘why not?'. According to a market survey, Chennai has the lowest home delivery order quantity because people here like to dine out. We thought we could take home delivery to the next level.”
With a call centre and a centralised number, StorElf caters to most of South Chennai's food needs. “We have tie-ups with different restaurants, and we use their delivery system to get our customer's food across. There is a minimum order the restaurant sets, but we also customise orders, in that, we can tell someone what they last ordered, or even make a list of their favourites. Most of our customers know what they want, but don't know where to get them, and some who just want to order in. We suggest restaurants, cuisine and dishes based on their preferences,” continues Sahil.
StoreElf looks to develop the delivery business as a whole. “We haven't advertised except in neighbourhood weeklies, and most of our orders have been through word-of-mouth. It's exactly like calling a restaurant for delivery, except that your experience with us will be better at no extra cost. Right now, we're catering from Alwarpet up to ECR, but we hope to expand soon. We work shifts, and our hotline is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.,” says Siddharth.
Call StorElf at 2446-2012.
Dinein.in
Vineet Chordia is a vegetarian who didn't want to spend hours waiting in long queues to eat at his favourite restaurants. To make things easy for his kind, he began dinein.in with Bushan Kalaiah, who also runs Pizz Deli, a delivery-only pizzeria.
“A lot of restaurants don't invest in manpower for delivery because of the hassles involved. That's where we come in,” says Bushan. “We register hotels on our website, and people can order online or call our centre to place an order.”
Dine In currently delivers in and around Nungambakkam. “The service is free for those in Nungambakkam or four km around it. Beyond that, we deliver if they meet a minimum order rate, and there'll be delivery charges too,” says Bushan.
It not just customises order, but helps make the customer's job easier. “A lot of customers want food they like, but not necessarily be interested in going to the restaurant. While their favourite restaurant might not have an active delivery service, we help them get their order,” he says.
Bushan hopes to not restrict the delivery to food. “Delivery is a vast service, and we hope to offer anything the customer wants — jewellery, gifts, cakes… We've started with food, and the feedback from restaurants and customers have been good. Restaurants are happy because they don't invest in anything, and customers are happy to get their order customised and delivered.”
Call dinein.in at 4214-1516
