LOGAN – Tuesday evening, Utah Governor Gary Herbert issued an order for all dine-in operations to cease for restaurants and bars throughout the state. Just days before that order, local restaurateurs had started coming together to formulate plans to serve both their loyal customers and their loyal employees through this period of social distancing due to the coronavirus. Justin Hamilton, owner of Cafe Sabor and Off Premise Catering, began fielding phone calls from other restaurant owners wondering what could be done to weather the current situation.
Sabor Saheli, owner of Angie’s Restaurant, reached out to Hamilton a few days ago and they started formulating a plan to create a singular location where people could get information about delivery and take out options. In cooperation with web designers and marketing contacts at the Cache Valley Media Group, the website cachevalleyrestaurantdelivery.com was created.
“First and foremost, let’s just give people some other options, first of all pushing to-go orders and pick-up orders; and then two, if there is a way to band together to help each other with free delivery service let’s do that as well.”
While food delivery services currently exist in the valley, like Door Dash and Uber Eats, Hamilton said not all local restaurants were utilizing a delivery option. In addition, there has been tremendous concern about keeping workers employed.
“We have a lot of employees who are going to suffer through this downturn,” Hamilton added. “A lot of them are service-based employees who live off of tips, they live off of inside dining operations. For us, especially with the catering operation, we wanted to still be able to allow these employees to have an income stream.”
Hamilton has vans that are normally used for his catering business that will now be used to deliver food from competing restaurants.
“It seems like a lot of the news we see seems like every day is a little bit worse and worse. If there’s some positive that can come out of these times that are tough, it would be that competitors and people work together to be able to help the supported the community that supported them and visa versa. At least that’s a little glimmer of good news which everyone is desperate to hear.”
Currently, 20 different locally-owned and operated restaurants are included on the site with contact information readily available to place a food order. If patrons prefer not to have personal contact with their delivery driver, they can request it at when they make their delivery and the food will be placed on their front porch. More restaurants may be added to the list. Hamilton said it’s not an exclusive club.
“Anyone who wants to be involved, there is a form they can fill out on the website, and we’ll include them in our marketing efforts and include them the best we can as we go through this.”
The following is a list of participating restaurants on cachevalleyrestaurantdelivery.com:
Cafe Sabor- Beehive Grill
- Great Harvest Bread Co.
- Angie’s
- Tandoori Oven
- Firehouse Pizzeria
- Morty’s Cafe
- Logan’s Heroes
- Stacked
- Crumb Brothers Artisan Bread
- Elements Restaurant
- Herm’s Inn
- The Factory Pizzeria
- Old Grist Mill
- Caffe Ibis
- Juniper Take Out