What Do You Want To See For Delivery?

Tuesday

Nov

12

By:David A. Howard

What awesome restaurants do you want to see Sherpa’s deliver? The power is in your hands. Tell us what you want to see added to our Sherpa’s menu, we’ll send a taste tester over to approve the restaurant, and then if all goes smoothly, it’ll be added to our ever growing list of partner restaurants.

Order Sherpa‘s Online: www.sherpa.com.cn

recommendation

9 Comments

  1. Suggestions from a Xuhui/FFC resident:

    1. The Grumpy Pig (I’ve never seen ‘coming soon’ listed for so long!)
    2. Noodle Bull (Changle Lu) – they make a perfect taiwan beef noodle soup
    3. Bistro Burger (Changle Lu) – great burgers that i suspect can deliver well
    4. Tock’s – I’m sure you’re considering this
    5. More venues that make NE USA style hoagies/grinders
    6. Korean food in the city center (has to be some decent? annyeong is mediocre)

    You should also consider options for people to upgrade to premium membership, and also give some rewards for frequent tipping of drivers. In a menu book, give about 15-20 removable tickets that the customer writes in the tip given and signs with customer ID, and driver has to submit these. These show up on web account etc.

    Trying to think of ways to get more customers tipping (especially unlikely if it’s true that the majority of customers are Chinese and it’s not the culture here), help you get better staff retention, and me to get my food faster when it rains or is busy vs a casual customer who hasn’t contributed likely 6000 RMB in delivery fees as my household has.

  2. 1. The Grumpy Pig changed the menu halfway through discussion but they are coming soon, very soon. we’ll get back to you with a date. it is worth the wait.

    2. Noodle Bull is waaaaay too cheap for delivery but we love them too.

    3. We’ll look into it!

    4. Tock’s -yes, yes, YESSSS!!! we are getting the contract on Friday so give us one or two more weeks. Love Tock’s, the Reuben, and Brian of course!!

    5. Where the hell do you get a hoagie in this town?

    6. Korean -who? where? how are we going to deliver BBQ? Benjia is amazing but that is waaaaaaay out in the the burbs. all ears for Downtown Korean recommendations.

    We don’t want to encourage our drivers to expect tips but we are restructuring the pay next year so we can hopefully hire more guys. also working on a loyalty scheme for next year.

    thanks for the tips… love, love, love the feedback.

  3. Ok, grumpy pig info – Training for the Grumpy Pig at 3pm on friday and then we are targeting sometime next week to start the actual deliveries.

  4. Given the amount of meals I’ve eaten via your business, it only feels like it’s in my best interest.

    1. Grumpy Pig is one of the best kept secrets in town, it’s just such a small and laid back place that I’m surprised they’re up to this. I expect a bit of a learning curve. Would be great if they’d throw a few of their signature cocktails in bottles like Simply Thai does with their iced teas. Really makes the meals.

    2. Have you considered only doing sets for Noodle Bull? Perhaps a gallon of soup with some garnishes? You can break up restaurant categories into ‘couples’ or ‘group’ friendly. This will force your existing restaurants to step it up and also bulk sell. Think about semi-reusable containers a bit more robust for the delivery process that also justifies cost. Lots of soup available on Sherpas so think about how to bring in these lower cost restaurants by letting them offer some ‘big meal’ packages. The tricky thing now, though, is the 200RMB minimum in rainy rush hour given your new 2014 rules

    3. Burger Bistro is full with butts in chairs every time I pass by as of late, so I think brand recognition is pretty strong.

    4. As a former Montrealer I think the poutine takes some tricks to deliver, and I think they can bump up the curds but this is cheese in China.

    5. The only hoagie places I’ve tried are on meal bay – NYC Deli and Cali Sandwich. Inconsistent, but a few gems. Mealbay as you know, its simply awful and one must expect 75 minutes for almost any order. If those places could beef up the consistency and reduce the number of offerings, perhaps they could be snatched away.

    6. Korean food is a lot more than BBQ. I am looking to see if there’s anywhere in the center of town is doing korean style fried chicken. A bowl of spicy octopus tofu soup along with that chicken and some rice hits the spot.

    The new Hooters on Huaihai Lu an option? I remember years ago when I lived in Jing’an you were carrying their food.

    Lastly, is there any specific reason you don’t hire female drivers? Almost any time I get into a taxi with a female driver, especially out of Shanghai where the quality isn’t as high as ours, I feel great. Perhaps they’re less likely to add time to a delivery by getting caught up with that extra cigarette?

  5. Hello,

    Around Pudong we’ve got a really nice selection of restaurants already, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone if we had more! The Jinqiao area in particular has a bunch of restaurants that aren’t listed in Sherpa.

    – Bollywood (Indian obviously, Hongfeng road)

    – Element Fresh: they have their own distribution system, so I’m pretty sure they won’t work with you. It’s a real shame because they don’t ship to my place which is slightly outside of their delivery area. If I could order via Sherpa it’d pay a little extra but I honestly wouldn’t mind, their food is fantastic.

    – The Fat Olive http://www.thefatolive.com/

    If I think of more places I’ll post here.
    Nice blog David!

  6. Zach,

    1.we’ll check with grumpy about the cocktails -big, massive fans of their gin mule, and bloody mary, and pretty much everything on the menu!

    2. hmmmm… noodle bull -we’re going to test something like that next year -tentatively called ‘afternoon delight’. if it proves popular, we’ll consider opening it up to some cheaper options.

    3. ok for bistro, we’ll try to get them on board.

    4. We have a meeting with Tock’s soon, so we’ll bring up the curds with them.

    5. we’ve tried nyc deli but not cali sandwich, will give it a whirl. archie b’s just opened in Pudong -they do some pretty good hoagies.

    6. Let us know what you discover!

    7.we added hooters huaihai today.

    8. no specific reason that we don’t hire women, it’s just not a particularly desirable job. We don’t exactly have a bunch of ladies lined up to be delivery girls.

  8. I forgot this one:

    Xibei You mian
    their website is here: http://www.xibei.com.cn/

    they have a couple of restaurants around town, I can think of at least 3 in Pudong (Thumb plaza, Jinqiao international square, Pujian road)

    Would be great if we could see them on Sherpa!

Comments are closed.