Door-to-Door Service: Teens Begin Delivery Initiative

How many times have you been sitting comfortably on the coach, exhausted and hungry after a long day of work, with no desire to make dinner or energy to pick up a takeout order?

Or perhaps you've been snowed-in, with bare cupboards. You call a pizza place, only to hear they're not delivering because of the weather.

Thanks to a group of West Essex High School grads, those days are over.

Last year, Billy Mensch and Ethan Miller formed North Caldwell Delivery, servicing residents in The Caldwells, Fairfield and Essex Fells.

The initiative slowed when Mensch and Miller left for college, but it's returned this summer with the help of 2010 West Essex grads and longtime friends, Corey Marx and Lee Holtzman, who have picked up where Mensch and Miller left off.

Customers place orders through the NCD website, choosing from nearly 20 restaurants. NCD only accepts cash and takes orders on weekdays, between 5:30 and 10 p.m. The delivery fee is 15 percent of the total order and those less than $20 require a minimum $3 tip. 

North Caldwell resident Jill Lehr, 43, has taken advantage of the service several times already.

"It is very convenient," she said. "Most of our town orders out always and we love getting food from restaurants that don't deliver to us."

Lehr said she orders from NCD at least twice a week, if not more, and added that she is "extremely" impressed with the initiative the teens have demonstrated.

Where do two teenagers come up with the idea to run a service like this?

"We noticed that a lot of restaurants don't deliver and we wanted to provide that service," Miller said. "If you can get it delivered without the hassle of parking and actually going, why would you go?"

Holtzman and Marx have a similar story.

"Back in the winter, we were always running out to pick up the food from restaurants 'cause they won't deliver in the bad weather," said Holtzman, whose four-wheel-drive truck handled the snow just fine.

Holtzman and Marx were further inspired when they struggled to find summer jobs.

"Lee and I were looking for a summer job and there isn't much out there this year, so we decided to do something ourselves," Marx said. "We thought this would be fun and a way that we could make some money."

"We were excited for the challenge," Holtzman added.

Holtzman and Marx contacted Miller, who gave them permission to handle the service until he and Mensch returned.

Mensch and Miller are now back in the mix after returning late last month from summer study abroad programs. Everything has mostly run smoothly, but it seems there are still a few kinks to be worked out. 

According to the NCD website, the company "brings food from exclusively takeout restaurants to the foot of your door." However, several restaurants listed on the site, including Caldwell Seafood, Cedar Grill and Forte Pizzeria & Ristorante, already offer delivery service.

Cedar Grill owner Roger Ghantous said he has never heard of North Caldwell Delivery.

"I've never worked with them," he said. "I have my team, they've been with me more than five years. I don't need the third party to do it."

Caldwell Seafood employee Adam Giorgio agreed.

"We have our own delivery team," he said. Asked if he has a problem with a third party delivering from the restaurant, he said, "absolutely."

One employee of Bangkok Kitchen, which is also on the NCD list of restaurants, said he's never heard of the delivery service. However, since Bangkok Kitchen doesn't offer home delivery, the employee felt customers might "appreciate" the service.

Holtzman admitted that they did not inform the restaurants that they have been placing orders for NCD customers.

Miller said that he and Mensch are in the process of obtaining a business license and credit card processing.

However, Miller said there's nothing that prevents NCD from bringing food to customers from restaurants—even ones that oppose their service.

"They have no right to tell people they can't order through our website and provide food that they can't get delivered," Miller said. 

Miller added that NCD has the right to pick up food from restaurants even if those establishments offer their own delivery service.

"This is a free country," he said. "We have just as much right to pick up orders and deliver them to our customers as they do. We have a right to profit off of our delivery system.

"If it's a restaurant that already has delivery, we're taking away the hassle of a phone call. You just place the order with one easy form."

According to one attorney with Gibbons, a premier law firm that handles business and commercial litigation in New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and Delaware, North Caldwell Delivery isn't breaking any laws.

However, NCD could be accused of misrepresenting the restaurants. In addition, if a customer criticizes the delivery service, it could damage a restaurant's reputation, the attorney said.

Still, Holtzman and Marz are confident the initiative will continue to thrive even after they leave for college later this month when Holtzman will head to the University of Tampa and Marx will attend school in Michigan.

While NCD suffered when Miller and Mensch left for college last year, Marx doesn't foresee having the same issues when he and Holtzman leave.

"We do have the same problems they did, because we are going to school, but we figured when we started that we could talk to kids younger than us," Marx said. "It's set up really easily and we're finding responsible kids that we think can handle it."

As both plan to study business in college, they may already have a leg up on some of the coursework.

"It was kind of a risk, but we're learning for the future," Holtzman said. "We don't mind putting in the hours and we're learning the ins-and-outs of advertising."

Marx said that more than anything, he's learned that when you have a business partner, you must completely trust that person. When it comes to succeeding, he said, "you've got to spend money to make money."