Mr. Delivery gives students more off-campus eating options

Tyler Wilson

News Reporter

Western Michigan University students can now expand their off-campus restaurant list without leaving the comforts of their couch. The new Mr. Delivery service gives students the option of ordering food from multiple Kalamazoo locations and they don’t have to leave their apartment or house to get it.

Unlike traditional delivery food restaurants, such as Jimmy John’s and Spice and Rice, which limit your menu choices, Mr. Delivery broadens the horizon even further.  Imagine eating wings from Hooters or a hamburger from Chili’s and never having to drive to those locations to dine there again.  Mr. Delivery  is making that possible.

“The purpose of Mr. Delivery is to partner with restaurants that don’t traditionally deliver,” said Lee Anne Benjamin, director of social media for Mr. Delivery. “We then deliver their food to the people of Kalamazoo.”

Mr. Delivery is a company aimed at picking up an order from a restaurant and delivering it to your front door.  Customers just have to visit their website click on the Kalamazoo link.  It then will provide them with a list of restaurants available to purchase food from.  They can choose their food and then check out by typing their street address.  A customer may also place an order via telephone if they prefer.

Eleven Kalamazoo restaurants are currently using Mr. Delivery.   Many more businesses are jumping on board as well, according to a press release.

“There’s definitely a lot more businesses coming,” said Jasem Yousuf, the franchise owner of the Kalamazoo location of Mr. Delivery. “We hope to add between 15 and 20 businesses by the end of the month. [Businesses] know about us and they are waiting to see us get started.  After we are open for a while and people begin to know us, they will become more interested, especially when people see what the guy across the street is doing.”

Mr. Delivery was established in 1992 in South Africa and has expanded ever since. Mr. Delivery has opened 50 locations around the world and has 12 locations in the United States, with hopes of adding eight more locations by the end of 2013.  Mr. Delivery has now opened three Michigan locations, Kalamazoo being the most recent.  The other two locations are in East Lansing and Ann Arbor.

Dylan Benjamin, CIO of the Mr. Delivery service, said that the general focus is to do business in college towns, according to a press release. He hopes to see college students take advantage of the service. Mr. Delivery is a great way to give students the ability to experience the tastes of Kalamazoo and Portage, especially if those students do not have access to off-campus transportation.

Anyone around campus is capable of using Mr. Delivery through their website.  However, there is a distance limit to where Mr. Delivery will travel.  The northern boundaries include the Westwood and Eastwood neighborhoods.  Centre Avenue in Portage forms the southern boundary.  The western limits include the US 131 area and, in the east, the area near Kilgore Road.