In the middle of the stage four restrictions, popular food spots in Melbourne are delivering their items to customers past the 5km limit to cope with demand and offer extended delivery.
Jina Thai
When asked about this, Premika Tanpat, the owner of Jina Thai restaurant, said “We were shocked at how quiet the restaurant was. In Stage 3 we were doing OK, but as soon as our customers couldn’t travel more than five kilometres to pick up food, we realised they didn’t just live in Abbotsford, Richmond and Collingwood. We decided we have to go to them.”
The strategy involved selecting a limited amount of suburbs every week, then reaching out promoting their delivery service via the popular social media app Instagram. This has allowed them since to cover Preston, Epping, Essendon and Footscray and Keysborough. More suburbs are always getting adding to their list of requests each day.
Tanpat also stated how its a way of showing gratitude to ongoing customers. “When we were packed and there was a queue outside, I never thought that people would have travelled so far to get to us. We feel these people are really amazing.”
By accident she also discovered that each suburb has different order preferences.
“In Footscray, everyone ordered tom yum soup,” she says. “Keysborough had deep-fried fish and when we went up to Epping where there are a lot of Thai people, everyone was ordering boat noodles. I can see the flavours of each suburb.”
Lune
Kate Reid, the owner of Lune, chose ‘hot suburbs’ in stage 4. Her strategy was to deliver to people who couldn’t reach her outside of the 4km. First of all, she trialled Doncaster and Donvale.
In a surprise move, all 75 slots sold out in an hour and she found out she got more deliveries due to the concentrated postcodes. Sometimes, she even does the deliveries herself. “You feel like croissant Santa,” Kate says. “And also a little bit like the Easter Bunny because contactless delivery means we text when we’re close, drop pastries on the doorstep, then ring the doorbell and run off like Usain Bolt.”
Vue de Monde
The renowned Vue de monde bistro is going to the bayside this coming weekend, which was announced by their Instagram page. Their executive chef Hugh Allen highly approved of this strategy saying “It’s a logical move. A lot of our guests live along there.”
Since the 20-30% own on the lockdown at first, Vue found Bayside had worked out well. They said, “They seem to be bigger orders, and they’re buying more expensive wine which is great for us.”
All deliveries which exit the bistro is managed by front-of-house staff, which includes competent French wine waiter Dorian Guillon. “They have no idea where any of the suburbs are,” says Allen. “They are constantly on Google maps working out where they’re going, but it’s not too bad having a master sommelier dropping off your dinner.”