LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) – ‘CJ On The Way’ is London & Corbin’s #1 restaurant delivery service.
How it got to that point is a remarkable story of two South Laurel County High School Seniors who just graduated, while fully running their food and grocery delivery service, “CJ On The Way”.
Co-Owners Connor Hollon and Jared Baker started the business seven months ago after Hollon approached Baker with the idea of a food-restaurant delivery business.
“Immediately I’m like well, London doesn’t really have much of a grocery delivery services around that do it,” Baker said.
Seven months later, between Hollon and Baker making deliveries, CJ On The Way has helped nearly a thousand customers to date.
“As of two months ago, we’ve been, well personally, making about $400-dollars a week,” Baker said.
Every hard-earned dollar has come from juggling school, then making deliveries after school gets out, until this weekend, as Hollon and Baker, have just graduated from South Laurel County High School.
Now, they plan to increase their hours and take the business to new heights.
“We are trying to be a truly competitive local business,” Baker said.
Local businesses, like Fiesta Mexicana, said they are loving CJ’s services. Fiesta Mexicana was the first restaurant to feature CJ’s business cards.
“It’s very easy the way they do it,” Maria Baker, Manager at Fiesta Mexicana said.
“We used to do Door Dash, but the cost of that was 30% and the food is already expensive enough, after COVID, so CJ is not charging us that much,” Baker said.
So while Door Dash takes a 30-percent cut of the restaurant’s profit on food, Baker said they charge zero dollars.
“So all we do is charge the customer. It’s $4.99 plus right now it’s 65-cents a mile,” Baker said.
Baker said they’ve partnered with 63 restaurants in London and Corbin, and have the largest delivery range, even helping customers who tend to be out of the delivery range of their biggest competitor, DoorDash.
“I’ve found that their average delivery fee is $13.99. In my opinion, we’ve already bit into their market share around here,” Baker said.
Unlike DoorDash, CJ On the Way is not a tech company with a lot of funding to start with. It is a startup for now, but Baker said its goal is to become a mainstream delivery brand.
“I definitely think there’s a future for locally provided delivery. Our plan is to find young entrepreneurs to give branches of CJ to in the future if we ever wanted to expand,” Baker said.
For now, CJ is expanding its hours starting Monday, with deliveries beginning at 8 a.m.
To place your order with CJ On The Way for either food or grocery delivery, visit cjontheway.com/restaurant-delivery
