Chapel Hill-based take-out company Scoot Food to expand offerings

A fleet of scooters bearing bright pink flags will soon take to the streets of Chapel Hill and Carrboro to deliver food from local restaurants to residents.

Scoot Food, a new restaurant delivery service based at Hector’s on East Rosemary Street opened March 21 with two scooters. The service is offered from noon to 9 p.m. and charges $2.99 per restaurant in an order, part of which goes to charity.

Scoot Food currently delivers Hector’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill, but they expect to begin delivering food from places like Noodles & Company, Bandido’s Mexican Cafe, Buns and Panera Bread in coming months.

The service started without much fanfare — but manager Claire Campbell said that was the point.

“We’re not trying to rush this,” she said. “We just want to take our time.”

She said she wanted to make sure they didn’t get overwhelmed with orders before the service is up and running efficiently.

Campbell said Carolina Coffee Shop and Jack Sprat Cafe will be the next additions to the menu.

“We’re hoping to add two to three a week,” she said. “We don’t want to do too many at once.”

Campbell said her brother,­­ Scott Campbell, co-owner of Hector’s and owner of Scoot Food, got the idea for the service after he became annoyed one day waiting for his food to be delivered.

Scoot Food delivers food within a 3.5-mile radius from their central location at Hector’s — a scope that includes the campus, Northside, Town House Apartments and downtown Carrboro.

“We anticipate a drastic boom in orders, and that’s why we wanted to make sure the kinks were all worked out in the beginning,” Claire Campbell said in an email.

She said 50 percent of Scoot Food’s profits will be donated to a charity chosen every few months by customers. To start off, Scoot Food chose the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Wes Garrison, co-owner of Tarheel Take-Out, another multi-restaurant delivery service with a delivery charge of $4.99 and $2.25 per additional restaurant, said he expects tough competition from Scoot Food. But he said it could be difficult for the business to succeed.

“It’s easy to test with one restaurant, but it’s a lot more difficult if you only have a fixed number of drivers and multiple restaurants to deliver from,” he said.

Garrison said his company has a major advantage over Scoot Food — a fleet of cars, which can deliver larger orders.

“We work with over 30 restaurants in Chapel Hill,” he said. “We can deliver it farther, but if you’re looking to just take a few orders to students, that would be a really great way to do it.”

Campbell said they use scooters because they are more efficient and environmentally friendly.

And though the scooters will stop for severe weather, they will usually deliver rain or shine.

UNC student Jessica Scarbeau said she will use the Scoot Food service as long as they stick to their environmental ideals.

“If they were going to stand by it, that would be great,” she said.

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.