(ThyBlackMan.com) Black restaurants have been around in the U.S since Black folks have been able to own property and establish businesses. Besides, you can’t have whole Black economic centers and not have a place for your people to eat within that area. The restaurant business as a whole has evolved to include the spinoff industry of food delivery.
Now, food delivery’s been around for some time as well. Before pizza and Chinese places delivered to residents, someone had to run food and often times local businesses had someone to do this during work hours. Once pizza chains started cropping up in the 1950s and 1960s in the midwest and delivery became associated with them in the 1970s and 1980s, restaurants kind of kept their distance from this.
After all, most people were either walking up, dining in, or driving through for their meals. No need to hire extra hands to run this stuff to them. That is, except for cities are dense like New York. Once ride sharing picked up in the late 2000s, it seemed only natural that it would be spun off to food delivery.
Ingredients for Food Delivery
The infrastructure for food delivery varies. Of course you need financial resources, manpower, and wheels. There are a lot of other elements that go into the business side but these three things are essential. Financial resources is a no-brainer. The old saying “You have to spend money to make money” rings true.
Manpower–well, that’s jobs right there. Plus, if you see these deliverers on a regular basis and they’re associated with delivering for a few Black restaurants there’s a familiarity element. Familiarity adds to trust–which is also important. When it comes to wheels, either you get yourself a couple of vans and cars or have deliverers use their own wheels. Going back to the density of a city, a bike will suffice.
The end goal is to get that food from point A to point B while keeping it hot and appetizing. You don’t want this stuff cold and sloshed together, obviously. We can’t forget the special ingredient: clients. If you’ve got any kind of service you need clients, right? In the case of food delivery it’s the restaurants themselves that hook up with the runners or the customers who send the runners out to a restaurant.A relationship with both or either is key.
Black Tech Is Exploring Food Delivery
It’s no surprise that Black people in tech are looking at this frontier and finding ways in. If you open any delivery app on your phone–UberEats, DoorDash, or whatever–you’ll find a number of local eateries and chain places with their menus up. Or rather, the menu of stuff they will deliver. Depending on the city, you might find an abundance of Black restaurants or–in the case of Birmingham–a few.
This is where Black developers and entrepreneurs come in. As Black & Mobile up in Philly has shown us, it takes observation of the food scene and finding a need for a particular service. Philadelphia has a Black population that is the biggest ethnic demographic in the city. There are a number of Black eateries. Like the ones here in Birmingham, most don’t have an in-house delivery service and aren’t listed on the food delivery apps. There are people–Black, white, Asian and so on–who would love some Black cooking but either can’t make it to the restaurant, don’t like the area (another discussion for another time), or just don’t like going to restaurants and waiting (like yours truly).
Services like Black & Mobile can deliver the goods, make money and establish relationships with restaurants and customers by being the only, the first, or one of a few delivery services running for these places. One of the biggest weapons in a food delivery arsenal will be the mobile app. After all, what good is a food delivery service if you have to call them, read off your phone what you want, then have them come and get your money, then run to the restaurant and back?
It’s all tedious! However, that app goes a long way in shortening things. It works the same way as DoorDash and UberEats too. There are a few other Black food delivery services like Urban Mobile 918 out of North Tulsa which would benefit from an app but is doing good work considering it’s hard to get folks to head into North Tulsa for stuff.
I say expect more to pop up soon or even expand into your cities.
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.