While more and more restaurants have been turning to services like GrubHub and UberEats to expand their business and allow customers to order food from their homes or workplaces, Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches is resisting the trend. Just this week, the company launched a national advertising campaign promising to keep their deliveries in-house.
“We just don’t trust anybody else to deliver our product,” said James North, President and CEO of Jimmy John’s.
Delivering sandwiches has been a mainstay of Jimmy John’s since it was founded by Jimmy John Liautaud in 1983. After opening his first shop in a converted garage in Charleston, Illinois, Liautaud began printing his menu on the back of business cards, which he handed out along with sandwich samples at Eastern Illinois University. Soon after opening the store, he began offering a delivery service to students’ dorms for a small fee. Since the sandwich shop was open late, college students frequently ordered sandwiches while studying. The delivery service was a large part of Jimmy’s success and the business quickly added new locations around Illinois.
Liautaud prides himself on Jimmy John’s delivery service being “Freaky Fast,” and with the delivery time for third-party services averaging 49 minutes, it does not fit with the Jimmy John’s promise of food in 30 minutes or less. In fact, Jimmy John’s average delivery time is actually less than 20 minutes and the stores only deliver within a small distance to ensure their food arrives fresh and fast!
Even as top competitors are getting into the delivery business, Jimmy John’s knows they have the edge because they’ve planned for their stores and staff to handle quick deliveries. Jimmy John’s also continues to deliver their products for a small fee, usually $2, while other delivery services can charge $8 or more. With over 2,800 stores around the country, Jimmy John’s employs approximately 45,000 delivery drivers to keep up with the demand for their sandwiches. They intend to keep these drivers on staff to ensure Jimmy John’s continues to offer it’s “Freaky Fast, Freaky Fresh,” delivery services.
