A wide palette for your palate: Unconventional food delivery options in Utah County
Five Sushi Brothers delivery boy Wesley Valdez gives a customer her order at her home Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boy Wesley Valdez preps an order for delivery Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 at Five Sushi Brothers in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Five Sushi Brothers delivers late-night sushi to Provo residents.
The Phat Brother roll features tempura shrimp and avocado, topped with eel sauce and chives.
Ellen's Pretzels delivers soft pretzels and dips to doorsteps in Utah.
At Jimmy John's, customers order sandwiches to stay or to go.
The chicken souvlaki pita at Pita Pit in Provo Monday, July 15, 2013. MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald
Toni Chung drizzles sauce on sushi rolls at a fundraising party for Five Sushi Brothers in 2016.
The Tiger Mom rolls features a tempura shrimp center, layered with Canadian salmon and topped with spicy tuna, shredded carrot, red pepper flakes and sweet Thai chili sauce.
{image}{photoCredit}Courtesy of Jacob Chung{/photoCredit}
{caption}The Band Manager is a tempura-style roll filled with avocado, crab, cucumber and cream cheese, topped with sriracha, eel sauce and chives.{/caption}
{standaloneHead}Review: Five Sushi Brothers{/standaloneHead}
{/image}
Delivery boy Wesley Valdez loads his car with delivery orders just before heading out from Five Sushi Brothers to deliver them Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boy Wesley Valdez heads out the back door of Five Sushi Brothers to make deliveries Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Five Sushi Brothers delivery boy Wesley Valdez knocks on a customer's door Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boys Dallin Jeffs, left, and Wesley Valdez look over boxes of delivery orders Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 at Five Sushi Brothers in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boys Wesley Valdez, left, and Dallin Jeffs lay out stickers to later put on delivery orders Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 at Five Sushi Brothers in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Five Sushi Brothers delivery boy Wesley Valdez receives payment from a customer for his delivery order Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boy Wesley Valdez looks over a list of delivery orders Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 at Five Sushi Brothers in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Delivery boy Wesley Valdez organizes orders for delivery before heading out from Five Sushi Brothers to deliver them Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 in Provo. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
We’ve all felt it: the hunger, uncoupled from any human willpower to get up and go from the couch to the kitchen. If we’re going to get up at all, we only want it to be to the front door. Fortunately, in those moments, there’s deliverance: that is, there’s delivery.
But food delivery nowadays is more than the traditional pizza or Chinese options. In Utah County, you can order in everything from cookies, sushi, pretzels and more.
We talked to the founders and owners of several different local companies to hear the stories behind some of the most unique plates that have been delivered to Utah County doorsteps.
Jacob Chung, one of the founders of Five Sushi Brothers, which delivers late-night sushi orders in Provo, said part of the goal was to bring more unique options to Provo’s food delivery menu.
“We came out in about May 2016 with the hopes of kind of starting something in Provo that hadn’t been done before,” Chung said. “We wanted to really revolutionize Provo and bring something to its culture that was very unique. And we knew that it was only a matter of time before this would be happening all over Provo.”
The idea of offering unconventional dining options on delivery has taken off.
“I know that it kind of started a while back, this whole delivery thing, with Five Brothers Sushi, and then there’s Chip (which offers cookies), and then there’s us,” said Todd Sparks, co-founder of Ellen’s Pretzels, which delivers soft pretzels and dips. “I love it. I think it’s fun, and people love the idea.”
A touch of the personal
Both Five Sushi Brothers and Ellen’s Pretzels have names that speak to the personal lives of the respective owners — but both also have a bit of a twist of what you might expect.
“We have five brothers in our family, but actually it’s only two who started the company,” Chung said.
As for Ellen’s Pretzels, the name doesn’t refer to Sparks or to his co-founder wife (whose name is Amanda). Turns out, the name sake is another member of their family.
“As crazy as it is, it’s actually our French bulldog,” he said. “We chose to go with that, because, you know, French bulldogs are adorable. They’re fun and spunky and we thought, ‘You know what, we’ll do it.’ “
Sparks said he also hopes that after the business starts growing, it can generate enough money that can be donated to humane societies.
Unconventional flavors on your doorstep
Chung said that having an unconventional delivery food like sushi presents some challenges. Customers, upon hearing about the idea, have expressed worries about freshness, and it sometimes strikes people as strange to take sushi out of the contexts with which they normally associate the food.
“People are a little skeptical about delivering sushi, because people usually have a connotation (with sushi) of a very upscale food, and delivery kind of brings down the connotation in their mind, as far as quality,” Chung said. “And so we have definitely dealt with that problem, but as people try our sushi, a lot of times they are quickly turned around in their opinion.”
He said that as soon as his brother and co-founder, Ammon, pitched him the idea, he knew it would work — and it has, despite their age. The two were 22 and 25 years old at the time.
“There was one day when my brother woke me up from a nap, and he’s like, he just got very excited, he was like, ‘Bro — what if we did a late-night sushi delivery company?’ ” Chung said. “And my eyes just widened, and I was completely awake, just from hearing that, and I knew from then on that this could be a real hit.”
And there’s a kind of fun in bringing food to people that they don’t normally get on their front doorsteps.
“Making pretzels is not easy, and nor is it exceptionally fun. But the enjoyment is that people love it,” said Sparks. “People love pretzels, and when you show up and people are beyond excited, you hand them a box of four pretzels, and they’re still a little bit warm, there’s some goods in there, people are just beyond excited. And it’s bizarre, and we love it.”
Franchise fun
Not all the services offering delivery options are small startups. Franchises, too, offer local delivery services.
“Honestly it’s just nice to have another option besides pizza,” said Amy Pettigrew, co-owner of the Provo Pita Pit. “So we try to leave as many delivery hours as we can.”
Pita Pit offers a kind of food that isn’t normally associated with delivery — but one that Pettigrew says fits it perfectly.
“They’re kind of like a hybrid between burrito and sandwich, so they’re actually a lot easier to eat on the go, or have delivered,” she said. “Not everything is gonna be falling out the sides and whatnot.”
Or, there’s the more traditional sandwich, like the kind you can get at Jimmy Johns, which also delivers. Erin Weight, one of the managers of the Pleasant Grove Jimmy Johns, said at their franchise, one of the main features on the menu is speed.
Although she said they only deliver to a short distance area around the store, “We make it that way so we can keep our ‘freaky fast’ reputation. Jimmy created ‘freaky fast’ because he wanted to stand out in the delivery world, and so we make our sandwiches freaky fast, we have freaky fast service, and our delivery is freaky fast.”
But “freaky fast” doesn’t mean unsafe, she added. “We keep a motto, ‘Fast on your feet, not on the street,’ meaning they’re hustling, but they’re not speeding. They’re running out of their cars and into the store, but not on the street.”
Unconventional side-requests for unconventional food
The food might be unconventional for delivery, but sometimes, the customers are even more so.
“We get kind of some fun requests sometimes, and (that) push our limits sometimes,” said Pettigrew. “Like, ‘Will you sing at the door instead of knocking?’ or ‘Will you clap your hands?’ or ‘Present it to me on one knee and tell me I’m beautiful.’ I remember drawing a Pokemon Go team symbol really big on someone’s bag lunch because she put in the special instructions, ‘Send someone from Team Valor’ or something.”
Turns out, for a while, the mobile video game Pokemon Go was a food delivery go-to.
“When Pokemon Go was a big craze, (we) delivered to some people playing Pokemon Go in a graveyard, just like 20 people chilling there,” said Chung. “You never know what you’re going to get, so it’s an adventure.”
Pettrigrew also said that while her team tries to accommodate “as much as we can,” sometimes there are limits to what a driver will be willing to deliver.
“I remember someone put in just a ridiculous request like, ‘Clop up to our front door like a horse and whinny,’ or something,” she said, “but then they had not put their complete address, or did not put their apartment right, and then they had put in their phone number wrong as well, and so I think by the time the delivery person finally got there, they were like, ‘You know what?’ … So at that point it was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m actually going to do this or not.’ There’s a limit. But typically we’ll kind of do whatever.”