12 • April 2021
BUSINESS NEWS
Coast River Business Journal
Food delivery abounds south of Columbia, lacks to the north
Story & Photo by Edward Stratton
Coast River Business Journal
estratton@crbizjournal.com
Since launching two months ago, the food deliv-
ery app Slurpalicious has reached more than 20 par-
ticipating eateries in Astoria and Warrenton and
has made 1,600 trips. Global giant DoorDash has
announced its launch this month in the same cov-
erage area.
But while food delivery grows on the North
Coast, the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington
still struggles to support such a service.
Candy Yiu and Akshay Dua, who are partners
in Portland restaurant Malka and run Near the Pier
Guesthouse in Astoria, started Slurpalicious as a
free online ordering app over the summer to help
restaurants on the North Coast during the coronavi-
rus pandemic. In February, the couple began mak-
ing deliveries through the app.
“It has been actually amazing,” Yiu said. “We
have learned a lot, both on the eatery side and on
the driver side. One of our goals is definitely to get
restaurants more orders so that they can sustain
(through) the pandemic. And I think that we have
achieved that quite well. In some cases, like Asto-
ria Brewing Co., on the first day they joined, we got
them 17 orders.”
Slurpalicious outlasted the short-lived North
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Slurpalicious, a food delivery service launched in February, now has more than 20 participating restaurants in Astoria and Warrenton.
Coast Grub, an expansion of Rock Eats in Cas-
tle Rock, Washington, that launched on the North
Coast around the same time but stopped deliver-
ies by early March amid challenges finding driv-
ers. The service, built on the premise of charging
restaurants nothing but reposting and up-charging
their menus to customers, drew the ire of some local
restaurateurs who said owner of North Coast Grub
Jakki Milo was deceiving their customers.
A spokesperson for DoorDash confirmed the
delivery giant would launch this month in Astoria
and Warrenton, along with Lincoln City, Newport
and Coos Bay in the coming months. The company,
launched by a group of college students in Palo
Alto, California in 2013, was listed on the stock
market in December with an initial valuation of
$39 billion. Second Measure, a consumer analytics
firm, said DoorDash accounted for more than half
of all U.S. meal delivery transactions at the time of
its listing.
Yiu said she is concerned about the competition
DoorDash will bring. But she and Dua started Slur-
palicious in part because of complaints by restau-
rateurs over the higher commission prices charged
by companies like DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber
Eats. Slurpalicious started out charging restaurants
no more than $50 a month in commissions and has
since waived all but a one-time activation fee.
Peninsula left out
While the North Coast has attracted interest
from multiple delivery companies, the Long Beach
Peninsula has remained a relative dead zone for
delivery.
Kevin Kline, a Long Beach city councilor,
maintenance technician at McDonald’s and driver
for AC Checker Taxi, said he is the only person
based on the peninsula delivering people or food.
“We’re able to make it work, but it’s definitely
tough,” he said.
Kline said there were some days in the summer
when he was able to make money doing deliver-
ies, but that he usually only makes between one and
three a day to mostly repeat customers. The issue is
getting restaurants on board, marketing the service
and getting customers to pay enough to cover the
cost of delivery, he said.
“It’s never going to be Astoria or a larger mar-
ket, but I think that under the right circumstances
— if COVID wasn’t happening, if all the bars were
open full time, if we were having our typical sum-
mers — it would be tons better.
“I think it’d be really difficult to support …
more than just a couple drivers, but I don’t know,”
Kline said. “As I mentioned, I have to work several
jobs and my wife works two. So that helps, but it’s
definitely tough.”
Yiu, who has about 20 people approved as driv-
ers on the North Coast, said she has spoken to eat-
eries on the peninsula. But she worries about being
able to ensure good customer service in far-flung
locales.
“We’re trying to do it slowly, so we don’t make
too many mistakes,” Yiu said.
Refining their delivery model is doubly import-
ant for Yiu and Dua, who plan around the end of
the year to expand Slurpalicious into Portland and
compete directly with delivery giants like Door-
Dash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.