When you look up burgers on a food delivery app, you will come across familiar names like McDonalds and T.GI.Fridays, but you’re also going to find many of the smaller Richmond staples, like Carytown Burgers and Fries, and Shockoe Bottom’s Bottom Burger. A search for tacos might show you Taco Bell, but you’ll also find Broad Street’s Asado, the Richmond home of the double-smoked bacon and chicken taco.

While smaller independently owned restaurants are making a name for themselves with great menu items, food delivery services like Uber Eats, GrubHub, and EatStreet are helping these restaurants reach wider customer bases.

“We definitely benefit by being able to reach more customers,” said Timmy Peele, a manager at Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan. “As well as make having more revenue.”

Most web-based delivery services give restaurants options for the delivery process. The service can act solely as an online ordering tool, with the restaurant using their own staff for deliveries, or the delivery service can provide drivers for pick-up and delivery.

For smaller restaurants, external delivery drivers help keep restaurant staff to smaller numbers.

“It’s pretty easy to keep one person in the kitchen and have those (deliveries) running the whole time,” Peele said. Many restaurants also subscribe to multiple services, working towards making their food as accessible as possible.

“We use EatStreet and GrubHub,” Peele said. “We did use Uber Eats before the ownership changed, and I think we’re planning on getting it back.”

Peele, who has been with Strawberry Street Cafe for eight years and three ownerships, has the rise of the market for web-based delivery services. 

“I was here before it started,” Peele said. “It came at a point where the restaurant really needed a boost.”

Image: EatStreet, via YouTube