Imagine, if you will, a night in Corvallis like any other. A group of friends are watching a movie. It’s all fun and frivolity until the terrible noise begins… it’s the low warbling of someone’s stomach, and it’s starting a trend. Everyone’s hungry and wants to get some food delivered, but the truth is Corvallisis one town where delivery is almost totally off the menu.
In scouring Corvallis I have found that of the approximately 90 restaurants in town, only about 8 have a delivery option. And of those 8, only 3 are not pizza. Those 3 places are Blue Sky Chinese restaurant, Jimmy John’s sandwiches, and the Pita Pit. Blue Sky is the only Asian restaurant in town that has a delivery option, and although it’s all the way out on 53rd street, they will deliver to all of Corvallis. That still leaves a huge variety of Asian foods totally unrepresented. Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Korean- no place in town offers a delivery option for these restaurants. Other than that, it’s a sandwich or a pita. And let’s be real, a pita is a sort of sandwich. Well I don’t know about you, but I can make a sandwich at home. If I’m ordering food out, I’d like it to be something that would be difficult or time consuming for me to make myself- hence why I would want to pay someone else to do it.
So why is it that Corvallis, a college town with a busy population, has so few options for delivery? The expense is a big part of the equation. The traditional 1 or 2 bucks tacked on for delivery is no match for gasoline that’s 4 dollars a gallon. Add into that the maintenance and repair of a vehicle or two that absolutely must work or you’re pegged as having inconsistent delivery service. These are all reasons to deter local restaurateurs from offering it. Even though I understand the reasons, I would gladly pay a little extra to get Pad Thai, or sushi, or a decent burger delivered in town. One can only eat so much pizza, especially once your college days are behind you. Remember, whoever decided to start a delivery of non-pizza items would be in a category all their own, they’d have the market cornered.
In my searching for delivery, if I have overlooked your restaurant then there’s a good chance many others have too. In a place with so few options, one should never fade into obscurity. In this case, please contact the Corvallis Advocate and we will run a correction in next week’s paper.
by Magdelen O’Reilly
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