A Port-of-Spain-based restaurant food delivery business that started about a year ago on the Internet is now expanding to south Trinidad, hiring more drivers, and estimating potential revenue at more than $700,000 per month.
Chris Narace, 24, and Renaldo Robertson, 27, started Eat868.com on November 8, 2012. Through their drivers or "mobile waiters" as they prefer to call them, they deliver food from Hakka Restaurant & Bar, Levels Ultrabar & Lounge, Chaud Cafe, More Vino, Jenny's on the Boulevard, Tao Sushi, All Out, Kava, Drink Lounge Bistro, Se�or Jalape�os Mexican Grill, Flair the restaurant, Mezzaluna, and Bella on the Avenue.
"On the conservative, if you take all zones of T&T and you tally them up, easily, you can see the company generating anywhere from $700,000 to $1 million a month in revenue," Narace said. He said the average value of a customer order is $265.32, adding that figure is going up. "When everybody was saying brace yourself for August and brace yourself for September, we actually saw growth," said Narace.
He said: "Our business model is that we charge the restaurant ten per cent, and the customer pays a 15 per cent service charge, plus the tip, which is optional."
The service charge is what others in the industry call the delivery fee. They deliver to Chaguaramas, Trincity and Caroni.
In an October 18 interview, and another telephone interview on November 15, they told the Business Guardian they intentionally started off low key, relying on word-of-mouth advertising and the Internet.
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