Edwardsville startup eyes booming online food ordering market

We’ve all been there: Hungry and pressed for time, we pull out our phones in search of food we can order online.

We’ve all been there: Disappointed that you can’t order online from your favorite local spot, so you give up and order the same old thing from the same old mega-chain restaurant.

But Ordello, a startup with an office on campus at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, is leveling the playing field, building websites for independent restaurants that allow customers to order online.

Soon, the new websites of local joints that use Ordello will go live, including Wang Gang and Nori Sushi in Edwardsville and the La Casa Mexicana restaurants in Edwardsville and O’Fallon.

The website for Robata, a restaurant in Maplewood, Mo., is live and operational.

“I like to say we’re a menu e-commerce system,” co-founder Jaymes Sorbel said. “To our understanding and research, there’s nobody out there like that.”

Jaymes started Ordello with his son Landry Sorbel of south St. Louis County, and four others: Mike Wunderlich, Sanders Crosby, Paul Pinneo and Caleb Jones.

How it works

Ordello hosts restaurants’ websites but the restaurants’ brand identities remain. On the front end, customers order menu items online the same way it’s done with the big chain restaurants. On the back end, Ordello provides restaurants with a tablet that keeps track of online orders and generates sales reports.

Restaurants currently pay a $399 startup fee and an introductory monthly rate of $149, though those prices will change in a few months as the venture gains steam.

Jaymes Sorbel said the idea for Ordello came to him one day two years ago as he was driving to work. A news story on the radio described how Domino’s Pizza had just surpassed $1 billion in online sales.

“I started thinking about how much it must have cost Domino’s and Pizza Hut and the like to design these online ordering systems. I’m sure it was in the millions of dollars,” he said. “I thought ‘How is the independent person going to be able to do that?’”

Research ensued, and Jaymes learned a few startling numbers.

“Seventy percent of all restaurants are single-unit locations. Non-chain restaurants. Those are the people that are missing out,” Jaymes said. “Online ordering is growing 300 percent faster than (the) growth of people dining in. Ninety-five percent of restaurants either don’t have a website or don’t have a website ready for smartphones. Just over 50 percent of Google searches are for restaurants.”

“We were like, ‘We can do this.’ So we started developing this system,” he said. “We decided to do a fully-branded system. Front end, back end, secure, so it doesn’t look like a pop-up or an add-on. Here’s one thing we’ve learned in the last two years: Restaurant owners are busy. So we’re going to do all this for you.”

It works a bit like Jaymes’ other company, ChrisLands.com, an e-commerce service for independent booksellers he founded way back in 2001.

It’s your money

Online food ordering isn’t new. But typically, online orders to independent establishments are handled by add-on services. They take a percentage of a food order for themselves as a commission and sometimes don’t pay restaurants what they’re owed for up to a month.

“We don’t do that,” Landry said. “We linked up with a payment gateway so you can claim your money (right away).”

“I don’t want to sit here and write checks once a month. And (restaurants) want their money right away,” Jaymes added. “I envision it like this: If you were going to start a restaurant, you’d rent a building. I’m your landlord, you rent it from me. But I’m not going to go in there and charge you for credit card processing, hold your money, and then 30 days later give you your money from 30 days ago. It’s your business. But if your lights go out? There I am. If your door lock is broken, I’ll fix the lock.”

“Our pricing right now is a flat monthly fee,” Landry said. “No hidden fees, no commissions, none of that. Our setup fee includes us hosting your website, web design, the tablet and a printer, importing the menu onto the tablet and website and helping you get through everything. That’s the atmosphere we’re trying to build on, that we’re here for you.”

Landry said the websites they build are clean and user-friendly. No pop-ups or add-ons. “The site looks, smells and tastes like the restaurant,” he said.

‘It’s not just about us’

“One thing I’m trying to establish is that it’s not just about how quickly we grow,” Jaymes said. “It’s about if the customer does well. I’m trying to create this culture of it’s not just about us. It’s about the customer, it’s about the employees, it’s about the community. Then after that, maybe then it’s about us.”

Stay tuned. While just a handful of restaurants currently use the service, Ordello is putting the feedback it gets from this “soft launch” phase into improved versions due out for a larger collection of eateries in the coming months. A mobile app also is in the works.

Thus the company hopes to grow, serving restaurants in this region and, maybe, in others. The Sorbels said more restaurants coming into the fold means Ordello will need more hands on deck.

And while the company is still young, it’s already become a point of pride for the Sorbels.

“I like that I can go into a restaurant and show them the value of using Ordello, and then when they’re using see them say, ‘Wow, this is great, it can help me expand.’ So to me, that’s the most rewarding part,” Landry said.

For Jaymes, it’s about a small business helping other small businesses.

“I’m proudest that we can level the playing field for the independent restaurants so they can compete on the same plane as the chains who spend millions of dollars,” he said. “I want owners to say, ‘Hey, I’m catching up.’ That might be the most rewarding thing.”

This story was originally published July 10, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Edwardsville startup eyes booming online food ordering market."