It’s been a challenging year for the restaurant industry, but Boulder is hopeful its new Safe Ordering Service program will help.
The city on Thursday will start its Restaurant Safe Ordering Service (SOS), where it will contract with Nosh Boulder, a new food delivery app, and use federal funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to pay participating restaurants’ portion of the third-party delivery fees. This initiative extends through Dec. 30.
After hearing that the fees associated with third-party food delivery companies has put an added financial strain on restaurants, city officials worked with the Boulder Chamber to come up with the idea for the SOS program. The city put out a request for proposals that was open from Sept. 28 to Oct. 12, according to city spokesperson Jennifer Bray. There were two submissions, and Boulder ultimately selected Nosh. Nosh operates NoCo Nosh in the northern part of the state.
It’s all part of the city’s efforts to prop up an industry that employs some 7,500 people in Boulder and is suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The city has been working with a lot of the local business community to try to help all the businesses survive the pandemic and thrive as much as they possibly can,” Bray said.
Nosh founder Gleidson Gouveia said the company’s mission is three-fold. Namely, Nosh wants to keep food delivery sustainable for independent restaurants while focusing on customer service and keeping money in the community.
“We just work really hard to do the right thing and to be an actual partner to all of the restaurants,” he said.
Chautauqua Dining Hall, The Sink, Leaf Vegetarian and Boulder Baked are among the 30 local restaurants currently signed up with Nosh.
Josh Surls, head general manager at Boulder Baked, said he’s excited about the new app, considering the struggles the bakery’s had with some of the other options.
“The way (Nosh) described it, it just sounds like a really, really well integrated program,” he said.
He’s hopeful the app and the new SOS program will help the bakery, though he did note Boulder Baked has been able to stay “decently afloat” throughout the pandemic.
“Apparently you put people on lockdown and they want cookies,” Surls joked.
While restaurants can continue to use larger companies such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub, Bray said it’s important for Boulder residents to know the city will front the restaurant’s delivery fees through the SOS program so local restaurants will keep more of the profit when diners use Nosh to order food.
Restaurants that sign up with Nosh for this program will have delivery fees capped at 15% through 2021 or when dine-in capacity restrictions are lifted, according to a news release from the city. Diners will continue to pay their portion of the delivery fee. Nosh can be downloaded in the Apple and Google Play app stores.
Visit boulder.noshdelivery.co to learn more.
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