JANUARY 15, 2009 ISSUE
Business Spotlight
Boone Take-Out Express—Making Restaurant Owners Happy and Cooks Unhappy for 14 Years
Ethan Anderson started Boone Take-Out Express in 1995 after helping a friend start a similar business in Breckenridge, Colo., in the early 1990s. Today, Anderson supports 35 employees and delivers food for more than 30 local restaurants all over the High Country. His business enables ‘mom and pop’ restaurants to compete with delivery giants such as Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s Pizza and Pizza Hut. Photo by Sam Calhoun
Ethan Anderson, owner, founder and creator of Boone Take-Out Express, jokes that local restaurant owners love him, but cooks hate him. Anderson has created a business that can make money for a restaurant even if its tables are full. However, the extra workload falls on cooks who have to fulfill the orders. Anderson advises the cooks to talk to the owners about some well-deserved reciprocity.
“I make cash registers ring,” said Anderson. “I’m the local restaurants’ best customer.”
Anderson is an entrepreneur and businessperson. He is the co-owner of Sunrise Grill and a partner in High Country Green Boxes LLC DwellBox, a business that is using inter-modal steel building units for residential houses. Anderson’s entrepreneurial spirit, though, first reared its head in 1995 when he started Boone Take-Out Express.
Boone Take-Out Express is a multiple restaurant delivery service that serves Watauga County and some select outlying areas. The business delivers food from restaurants that don’t offer delivery, enabling ‘mom and pop’ restaurants to compete with delivery giants such as Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s Pizza and Pizza Hut.
Customers can place orders online or over the phone. Boone Take-Out Express drivers take the order, pick it up, drive it to you and receive payment for the order plus a delivery charge. The base delivery charge is $3.95, but if customers want food delivered to Blowing Rock or Foscoe, the charge is $6.95. Customers who want Hunan Chinese take-out in Sugar Mountain pay $9.95.
Delivery fees are based on the distance of the home from the restaurant, and the distance the drivers are willing to travel is based on how long the food can sit and maintain a good quality. Currently, Anderson employs 35 delivery drivers and office workers and delivers food from 32 local restaurants. He staffs four drivers during the day and 8 to 10 at night, seven days a week.
Anderson runs tabs at each of the restaurants during the week and then pays off each tab every Monday. This practice, along with being efficient and being meticulous about every order being fulfilled correctly, enables Boone Take-Out employees to not interrupt the regular operation of local restaurants. The order is placed, the food is cooked and the delivery person grabs it and is gone.
“When we started the business, the restaurant [owners] realized that with very little hassle and no money they could make their cash registers ring,” said Anderson. “All they were risking was their reputation and I convinced them that I could protect and even enhance that.”
Anderson was born in Charlotte but moved to Atlanta at a young age. After finishing high school in Atlanta, Anderson enrolled at ASU in 1986 and graduated in 1990. For the next three years, Anderson indulged his obsession with sports by living the ski-bum life in Breckenridge, Colo. While living in Colorado, Anderson helped a friend start a similar business to Boone Take-Out Express called Breckenridge Take-Out.
At the end of 1993, Anderson moved back to Atlanta and opened a restaurant with a few friends. The restaurant was successful, but an auto accident took the life of one of Anderson’s partners one year later and Anderson sold his interest in the business.
“And the mountains were calling me back,” said Anderson.
Anderson said he suffered from the “Boone-erang effect” and knew he had to get back to the mountains. Anderson was and still is an avid mountain biker—he mountain biked 155 days in 2008—and the mountains provide a perfect playground for his sport of choice.
When he arrived back in Boone, Anderson’s plan was to make some money and then move back to Colorado and buy Breckenridge Take-Out from his friend. He soon realized that Boone was in need of the same service.
Many of Anderson’s college friends were still in Boone when he returned, and some had opened restaurants. Anderson told his friends of his idea in the hope that some of the restaurant owners would sign on.
“They thought it was a great idea,” said Anderson. “I started with eight restaurants and it just snowballed.”
For the first few years, Anderson ran the business out of his garage on Oak Street in Boone. The business only requires computers, radios, drivers and telephones, so Anderson didn’t need much space or infrastructure. The business concept was sound; the overhead was low.
With taglines like “Food For Your Mood” and “One Call Delivers It All,” Boone Take-Out Express flourished in the High Country.
In 1997, with Boone Take-Out Express successful, Anderson decided to move to Chapel Hill and open the same business, this time called Tar Heel Take-Out Express. He hired a manager to run the Boone business while he was away. Akin to the response in Boone, Chapel Hill restaurants jumped on board quickly and the business took off.
While in Chapel Hill, Anderson met a teenage computer programmer and web site designer. The duo worked for months to create a website and a POS (point of sale) system for the two companies. The POS system turned out to be revolutionary to the businesses. Whereas, in the beginning, Anderson spent 25 to 30 hours per week doing accounting for the business, the POS system cut his time down to one hour per week. By 1999, Anderson and the programmer introduced online ordering for Boone Take-Out Express and Tar Heel Take-Out Express, years before the same option became available for Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s Pizza or Pizza Hut. Today, 60 to 70 percent of all orders taken by Boone Take-Out Express are done online.
In 1998, Anderson decided he wanted to come back to Boone and sold Tar Heel Take-Out Express to a manager from Boone Take-Out Express.
After 14 years in business, Anderson is now known across the country as a consultant who helps people start similar businesses. He has helped open 10 similar businesses across the country, from Asheville to Portland, Ore.
Anderson makes it easy for new business owners to be successful using the Boone Take-Out Express business plan. Just as the web and POS system catapulted Anderson’s business to success, Anderson now shares that same technology with new businesses he helps. Whereas it costs roughly $30,000 for a new POS system, Anderson leases his POS system to new clients for a $250 setup fee and 25 cents per order. This setup enables Anderson to constantly update the system and share the updates with his clients in other cities. If there’s a problem with the POS system at any location, Anderson can fix it from Boone. To date, Anderson has leased his POS system to 40 companies throughout the nation.
Anderson uses television, print and web ads to advertise Boone Take-Out Express, and also advertises in hotel guides, on dining cards and on the local game show Sqrambled Scuares. Anderson also prints a tabloid that contains the menus of all the restaurants offering delivery through his business. Anderson prints 20,000 of the tabloids, and restaurants pay $100 for a full-page menu in the publication.
In the future, Anderson hopes to help other people start similar businesses in other towns, but he said he has no plans to sell Boone Take-Out Express.
The headquarters for Boone Take-Out Express is located at 475 Blowing Rock Road in Boone. The delivery service is available seven days a week from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. For more information, click to www.boonetakeout.com or call 828-265-1611.
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