Takeout Guys: Seacoast Area Delivery

At the end of October, a new takeout business flourished in the Seacoast area. Takeout Guys is a convenient service that goes to certain restaurants and chains in the Seacoast area and offers delivery to Portsmouth, Newington, Rye, Kittery, Kittery Point, Eliot, and York. You call a restaurant, order whatever you’d like from there, and Takeout Guys will be on their way.

“We get the orders through our dispatcher,” co-owner James Dobson said. “The order pops up online, and the restaurant automatically gets that order. Then we assign one of the drivers, and they pick it up to deliver it.” 

Elizabeth Calabrese, co-owner of Takeout Guys, said she always had this idea in the back of her mind after seeing something similar in Washington, D.C. 

“I thought it would be easy to start and so cool to be able to get Mexican or sushi for dinner from home,” Calabrese said.

Dobson said that once Calabrese told him of her idea, he immediately went to 24 different restaurants the next day proposing the idea. To his surprise, three of them said yes. The two owners of the new local food business to go confess that it was hard starting out. 

“It was making money, finding restaurants and drivers that were tough,” Dobson said. “I remember going into the Bank of America and handing out fliers to the clerk. When I went back there, I heard a couple of older ladies talking about wanting delivery. I said, ‘Call the Takeout Guys.’ They said, ‘What’s that?’ I then went up to the clerk and said, ‘Didn’t you hand out my fliers?’” 

However, the two owners said they believe the toughest part is past. They now have four drivers and deliver from fourteen different restaurants. 

“It’s not a typical business. We have fun and wing it in the middle of the night. It’s not a plan to plan,” Calabrese said.

Takeout Guys delivers to a number of different people, from those who are unable to go out and pick up their orders themselves such as the elderly or those with disabilities to those in the workforce or are just too plain lazy. 

“We feed a mixture of people. Some say we’re feeding ‘fat America’ but it’s a business that’s going to work because people love to eat in America,” Dobson said. 

“People love to stay in,” Calabrese said. “I know a restaurant owner who orders food from other restaurants because he doesn’t want to go out.” 

When asked about how many calls they average in a week, the owners replied that right now they are somewhat slow and because of that they average about twenty to thirty deliveries per week. 

“It’s only been a couple of months,” Calabrese said. “People tell friends who tell friends and so on. Right now, people don’t know they can get delivery and pick up.” 

At the moment, Takeout Guys has not yet come to UNH. When asked about what coming to Durham would mean for their business, they replied that it would be a big success.

“It’s huge here, frats, so many more buildings and restaurants,” Dobson said. “There is potential business success. We would do well here.” 

“It’s a no brainer,” said Calabrese, agreeing with her partner. 

When UNH students were asked what they thought about the possibility of the Takeout Guys bringing their business to Durham, there was a lot of positive feedback.

Rachel Dongarra, a freshman, said, “That would be really solid, especially with it being so cold right now.”