Dinner Delivered now offers alcohol delivery
Chattanooga’s oldest and biggest food delivery service is adding alcohol delivery.
Dinner Delivered on Monday launched what its owner believes is Tennessee’s only alcohol delivery service, delivering beer, wine and spirits from seven local vendors. Stephen Hays, the operations manager who started Dinner Delivered in 2008, said the service will start in Chattanooga. But he hopes to soon expand the alcohol delivery option to all nine markets served by Dinner Delivered, including Cleveland, Athens, Maryville, Oak Ridge and the North Georgia areas of Ringgold, Fort Oglethorpe, Dalton, Rome and Cartersville.
“We are attempting to help each customer stay under an 8-mile and $4.99 delivery fee radius to have the beer, wine, spirits delivered,” he said. “We want to do more than just offer beer, wine and spirits to people on a regular basis. We want to be able to couple these items, like we would dessert with a meal, to make it a more normal and natural occurrence in the community, rather than being a means of adding a vice service to the area.”
The minimum purchase amount is $10, before taxes and delivery fee, and those ordering alcohol online for delivery will be required to verify they are at least 21 years old both when they order and when the delivery is made to their home, hotel room or business.
Hays said the company has been building a business model for the past four years to comply with Tennessee regulations for alcohol service and delivery, including having all delivery persons serving alcohol licensed by the state after completing background checks.
Currently, just over two dozen of the 450 independent delivery workers Dinner Delivered uses have been certified and trained for alcohol delivery, but Dinner Delivered managers expect that number to grow as the business grows.
“We have constructed a scaleable business model that we will use to expand to nearby cities as well,” Josh Weyler, the general manager for Dinner Delivered, said in an announcement of the new service.
Other delivery services such as Brown Bag started alcohol delivery three years ago but have since focused on only food delivery in the wake of state regulations for alcohol delivery.
Initially, Hays said the alcohol vendors partnering with the new service include Chattanooga Wine and Spirits, East Brainerd Wine and Spirits, Highway 58 Liquors, Imbibe wine and spirits, Ooltewah Discount Liquor, Riley’s Wine & Spirits and Riverside Wine & Spirits and will operate every day from 2-10 p.m.
“Hopefully, the service will be utilized when people have already been drinking, and they desire more, but don’t want to endanger themselves or others by going out and buying it,” Hays said. “We can’t control who drinks and where, but we can allow customers a service to have drinks delivered to them, to lessen the community impact of DUIs.
The new service is being added as a growing number of food delivery services are operating in Chattanooga, both as third-party distributors for other businesses and by such restaurant chains as Panera Bread.
Hays said a half dozen food delivery vendors have entered the Chattanooga market over the past couple of years. In April, the national food delivery vendor Postmates expanded into Chattanooga, bringing the number of independent food delivery services in Chattanooga to at least nine.
The alcohol delivery service will help distinguish Dinner Delivered and expand its services in the increasingly competitive market, Hays said.
Customers can order cold beer along with a variety of wine or liquor bottles on the Dinner Delivered App, on the mobile site at www.chattanoogaalcohol delivery.com, or by calling 423-634-8899.
Dinner Delivered has about 20 customer service representatives who handle dispatch for the new service, along with the dinner deliveries in markets across East Tennessee and Northwest Georgia.
Contact Dave Flessner @timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.