Business brings restaurants to students

It used to be that pizza and sandwich guys were the only people delivering food door-to-door.

Now two young entrepreneurs, Andrew Dundas and Linda Walter, are delivering everything from sushi to jerk chicken to USF students and others in the off-campus community.

In September, Dundas opened Feed-a-Bull, a service in the University area that delivers food from restaurants without delivery services of their own.

Dundas, a USF alumnus, delivered pizza for six years while he was in college. He got the idea to start his own delivery service after seeing something similar at the University of Florida. In July, he started looking for restaurants to sign contracts.

“A lot of restaurants seemed surprised and, at first, hesitant,” he said.

Shortly afterward, Walter, a business student, became co-owner of Feed-a-Bull. The two handle all the orders and marketing for the business from a cramped office on Fowler Avenue.

“It’s small, but our business is handled outside of the office anyway,” Walter said.

Feed-a-Bull delivers from 10 restaurants: Beer Belly’s, Beef O’Brady’s, Bobalouie’s, the University Area Hangout, Daddy Gill’s, Guthrie’s, Jerk Hut, Thai Fusion, Antonio’s and Bonsai Sushi.

Dundas and Walter keep a tally of other restaurants customers request when they call in orders.

“Then we can go to those restaurants and say ‘this is what you’re missing out on,'” Dundas said.

By February, the two hope to have 25 restaurants on their Web site, Feedabull.com. In two or three years, they’d like to have every restaurant in the area using Feed-a-Bull, they said.

Feed-a-Bull isn’t only for students. Right now, most of the customers aren’t students, Dundas and Walter said. But they hope to change that.

They pass out coupons on campus, have Facebook groups and are starting to print “Feed-a-Bull” on the wristbands that are often used in bars.

On the Feed-a-Bull Web site, Dundas has also posed a guide to barhopping, which he thinks is as novel as Feed-a-Bull itself. The guide includes drink specials, cover fees, entry ages and entertainment.

“It’s something I’ve never seen anywhere else,” he said.

Dundas and Walter said they know the menus well enough to know which sides are offered with each item. Each restaurant’s menu is also provided on the Web site.

“We’re like a waitress over the phone,” Walter said.

Because of the strong relationship that Feed-a-Bull has with the contract restaurants, orders are ready faster, Walter said, adding that an average order takes about 40 minutes to place, pick up and deliver.

Feed-a-Bull delivers to anywhere in the USF area, including on-campus dorms and in Tampa Palms. A minimum of $15 must be spent, and there’s a $2.50 fee for the service.