Philadelphia has long been known for its amazing and distinctive cuisine. From the soft pretzel, to the stromboli, to the iconic cheesesteak sandwich, the City of Brotherly Love is home to some of the most delectable food choices that have ever graced the human palate. A new mobile application called, GrubHub, Inc. is making it easier for all the residents of Philadelphia to enjoy their favorite foods without leaving their houses or offices.
GrubHub, Inc. is the effectively the result of two separate companies with a like mind to provide food ordering and delivery only. GrubHub was started in 2004 by web developers and former lawyers, Michael Evans and Matt Maloney, who, as the website describes, were “fed up with out-of-date paper menus”. They decided to put together a business plan for a delivery service app in their home city of Chicago. They entered the 2006 Edward L. Kaplan New Venture Challenge held by the University of Chicago, and won, landing them $1.1 million to expand to the New York and San Francisco metro areas. After successfully implementing their business plan in those markets, venture capitalists invested nearly another $100 million in seed funding to help build the endeavor’s credibility quickly.
The other part of their corporation, a company named Seamless, was started in 1999 by Jason Finger, a New York lawyer that thought that by creating a database of menus, people would have an easier interface in which to do business with restaurants and caterers. After over a decade of business, Seamless merged with GrubHub to create GrubHub, Inc. Since it’s inception the company has won or been nominated from some of the most sought after business awards, including being named to THE DIGITAL 100, which is a list of the world’s most valuable privately held technology companies in 2013, a year before they went public. They are now traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange.
GrubHub, Inc. came to Philadelphia as a third party app in 2009, but recently they have begun setting up their own carriers, effectively providing Philadelphia with the same service as it has set up in other major markets around the world. It now features upwards of 60 restaurants to choose from in greater Philadelphia, adding to their total of over 30,000 restaurants they deliver for throughout hundreds of American cities as well as London.
As a result of moving to provide their own drivers, GrubHub is now taking advantage of the obvious demand in the urban transportation sector for service-based applications. By joining the likes of Über (transportation), FedEx and UPS (product delivery), Boxed, and Instacart (groceries), Minibar and Drizly (liquor), Wag (pet supplies), Washio and FlyCleaners (dry cleaning and laundry), GrubHub makes living in places like Philadelphia a little bit easier.
Technology is presenting consumers new options all the time, but the app-based service is a business model that many companies are looking to take advantage of in what is now, a completely connected culture, where nearly every person has a powerful computer at their disposal at all times. If you haven’t heard of it yet, or simply failed to take advantage of this app, download it now on the AppStore or Google Play .