By Catherine Spearnak
New delivery apps let Uptown residents stay in — for a cost
It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday and you have a hankering for some Thai food. But you’re already in your jammies, and you don’t want to drive to your favorite Thai restaurant.
There’s a solution. Call Swingby. They’ll have it to you in 40 minutes or less, said owner Wesley Hsu.
“I think it’s a need a lot of people have,” he said. “You know, they’re craving a specific food and they don’t want to get in their car and drive there. It’s been an idea I’ve had for kind of a while.”
Hsu isn’t alone. Not only can San Diegans get a restaurant dinner, but notebooks, pens, and other household goods, wines, beer and any kind of alcohol.
Even a cup of Starbucks coffee.
Delivery services are on the rise all over the nation, making the need to leave your house almost obsolete. Food and beverage delivery is expected to be a $100 billion market by 2019, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Hsu started his business from his Normal Heights home in June 2014. He delivers to the Uptown area and UC San Diego. In just a few months, Swingby has done so well he is looking for investors, and hopes to expand to all of San Diego County.
“If Uber can work, if Lyft can work, why wouldn’t food delivery work?” said the 27-year-old UCSD graduate.
Hsu isn’t the only entrepreneur with that idea. Saucey delivers any alcohol, wine, beer and spirits, to neighborhoods in San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Chris Vaughn, Saucey CEO and co-founder, created the business when he found he and his fiancée, an operating room nurse who works long hours, couldn’t order a bottle of wine to complete their dinner.
“You can do anything on demand, but when it came to ordering a bottle of wine, there wasn’t a service,” he said.
It’ll cost you, though. A case of 24 bottles of Corona beer costs $41.50 for delivery from Saucey, and $27.99 plus tax at BevMo.
Still, people must forgo the cost because Saucey is expanding in San Diego, as well as San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“It’s going very well,” Vaughn said. “People like to have beer, wine, cocktails and spirits at their door in 20 to 30 minutes. It’s a very seamless, fast process.”
Postmates, a delivery service throughout San Diego as well as nationally and internationally, delivers just about anything — even Starbucks — for a delivery charge.
“Postmates acts as a personal assistant,” said Postmates deliverer Tim Palcho. “A pound of apples, a Mac — anything I can legally get you, I’ll bring.”
On its website, Postmates posts general store items. For example, a box of 28 Huggies is $13.49, two ballpoint pens are $6.79, and six pingpong balls are $3.49. There’s a service fee of $2.14, and a delivery fee of $12.25.
Total: $38.16
But a cup of Starbucks will really cost you. A grande vanilla macchiato can be delivered to your front door or office in one hour for $15.45.
Hsu of Swingby is convinced delivery services are the way things are going. He’s ambitious with his business and hopes to increase his fleet of seven drivers to hundreds in San Diego.
“So if someone is really willing to pay for it, they can get something delivered from Chula Vista to Oceanside,” Hsu said.
—Contact Catherine Spearnak at [email protected].
