Peter DiAntoni founded his bicycle food delivery service, Flavor Cycle, in 2012. He got the idea while reporting on a food delivery service in San Francisco that gave courier jobs to out-of-work bicyclists. His business in Milwaukee follows that model, providing employment to cyclists in a useful and quality service. Flavor Cycle has been rolling merrily along since its inception, although there are a few new challenges.
How does Flavor Cycle work?
We deliver for around 30 local businesses including the grocery store, Koppa’s, through phone and online orders. We have 14 cyclists currently, including me. We all bike upwards of 50 miles a day, mostly delivering in Downtown Milwaukee. We deliver as far as Shorewood, Bay View and Marquette University. We hire the cyclists and set up our work relations through word of mouth. Businesses choose us to deliver for them mostly because of cost. As a smaller business, they only have to go through us to set up, versus multiple tiers of corporate managers or whatever you have to go through for other companies. And we’re local businesses supporting each other.
Why bikes?
It blows my mind how heavily discounted bikes are. People think it’s such a huge deal that we deliver with them. Bicycles are extremely efficient. We’ll deliver with regular bikes, but there are also bikes built specifically for cargo. I use one of our two Bullitt bikes every day. And there’s the fact that you don’t have to worry about parking or traffic, insurance for cars or overhead for the drivers. And when it comes to stuff like Summerfest, and with all the road closures and crazy urban traffic, you don’t have those problems on a bike. We deliver easily in the winter, too; you don’t have to worry about cars not starting.
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What’s changed?
The biggest difference between when we started and now is that the app companies exist. In the last year, we lost at least 50% of our business. Because you can’t compete with, like, Grubhub. They give $10,000 worth of coupons to every restaurant they partner with. They’re just voracious. We’re just a little thousand-dollar company. But we’re still making a living. It’s pretty cool, though we can’t employ as many people as we used to. If you ask if I’m concerned about the future of our business, no, I’m not. I think there will always be a place for a local business.
What’s the best part?
I love the social aspect. During the business day, you get to see office life. And then in the evenings, people order from their homes, so you get to experience all the interesting houses that come up. Sometimes I help people put their groceries away. You get a really interesting view of the inside of the city. And there are really, really nice people. We have really good relationships with our customers and the restaurant staffs.
Where do you see yourself in the next few years?
I mean, I’d like the business to continue. Personally, I don’t have any grand visions of the future; hopefully we’ll all still be alive. I did self-publish my own magazine for a while but had to give it up when Flavor Cycle really took off. I don’t know that I’d go back to that. I just kind of take it day by day. I’d love to tour the country on my bike. I’ve gotten to a point where I have a different idea about how to accomplish things. So I’ll just kind of take things as they come.
To order a delivery from Flavor Cycle’s list of participating restaurants, visit flavorcycle.com.
