Dallasites have a bevy of quality restaurants to sate their hunger, but a newly launched app makes it possible to get whatever you crave delivered to your doorstep — regardless of the establishment's delivery policy.
Favor, which went live in Dallas in mid-November, is an on-demand delivery service that picks up food (or groceries or dry cleaning or pretty much anything else save for alcohol) and brings it to you. Gone are the days of choosing pizza or Chinese simply because those are the only options. If you want it, Favor can get it.
The app charges a $6 delivery fee plus a 5 percent credit card processing fee. No cash is ever exchanged, and each delivery person, or “runner,” can be rated on his or her performance.
Gone are the days of choosing pizza or Chinese simply because those are the only options. If you want it, Favor can get it.
Originally launched in Austin in July 2013 by Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais, Favor grew to Boston on the back of early-adopting Millenials in both cities looking for the convenience of on-demand delivery of food — whether retrieved from food trucks or sit-down restaurants.
Maurais says he and Doherty started out delivering orders personally; Favor grew to more than 500 runners in Austin within a year. Maurais saw Dallas as a natural next step for the service.
“Dallas actually doesn't have anything like Favor,” he says. “A lot of the people who use Favor in Austin have friends and family in Dallas, and just from polling the audience, we found out there's a really high demand to bring what was working [in Austin] to Dallas.”
Maurais says that Favor aims for simplicity in ordering for an experience customized to each user. According to the website, one can order food in three button taps and have it delivered in an average of 35 minutes.
Favor is different from other delivery services, Maurais says, because its structure covers every level of the process — from the training of the runners to the order taking to the delivery of the goods — as opposed to just serving as an online middleman.
“We wanted to just focus on that core of getting all the people and training them,” he says. “Then we build out the app to make it more efficient, with fast delivery times and a reliable experience. ... The people who are picking and dropping are trained almost as a personal service.”
For now, Favor is keeping the delivery area and times limited to ensure they can maximize the user experience. Runners deliver from 11 am to 9 pm in downtown, Uptown, Lower Greenville and the Park Cities; both the start and end points must be within those neighborhoods.
Maurais says there are plans to expand the geography and hours once the service is more established. “We like to launch with a smaller delivery area and hours so we can get fast delivery times,” he says. “But I think the surrounding areas would also benefit from it.”
Get a sandwich from Uncle Uber's delivered to you by a Favor "runner."
