NL man who delivered over 10,000 Door Dash orders launches own service

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If there were ever an award handed out for the most delicious-smelling vehicle in the province, Clarenville native Steve Bailey’s Nissan Qashqai would surely be a front-runner.  

Having completed an eye-popping 10,000 food deliveries between Clarenville and St. John’s over the last two years as one of the province’s busiest Door Dash drivers, Bailey is converting his delivery experience into a brand new business opportunity with the launch of Bailey’s Delivery, a food delivery service that will collect an order from any Clarenville-area restaurant and deliver it across the region for a nominal fee.  

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Bailey first saw the potential in a locally-owned delivery service during the COVID-19 pandemic when many businesses and services were forced to pivot and embrace new opportunities in order to stay afloat. With a few years of delivery service now under his belt, Bailey felt it was time to go out on his own.  

“I’ve had it planned for a couple of years actually,” Bailey told The Telegram. 

“I started off with Door Dash a couple of years ago in the St. John’s area. I had planned that when I came back to Clarenville I was going to take advantage of it, get a bit of experience and by that time I’d be ready to start my own thing.” 

‘They can just text me’  

Bailey says he was one of the first drivers in the Clarenville area to start delivering for Door Dash when the service was introduced to the area a few years ago and averaged between 30 and 100 deliveries per day, depending on the weather and time of year.   

Through his journey into every restaurant and onto nearly every street in Clarenville, Bailey noticed some gaps in the way food was being delivered in his hometown.  

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While many local restaurants offered delivery through DoorDash, Bailey noticed that there were just as many that were not able to offer a delivery service at all. He also felt that both meal costs and delivery fees were too high when ordering from the online platform.  

And so, Bailey’s Delivery was born. For $5, Bailey will collect your order from any local restaurant and deliver it anywhere between Clarenville and Georges Brook, with an extra $5 fee added if the trek has him driving beyond Cabot Timbermart. 

“I wanted to be my own boss and offer a cheaper delivery fee and get more customers,” Bailey said. 

“If you have a better quality product, then you get more customers. Plus, I offer delivery for all of the restaurants now. Door Dash only offers delivery for a certain few. So now if anyone wants Don Cherry’s, they can just text me, say ‘Hey, pick up this order at Don Cherry’s’, and it’s perfect.”  

As a familiar face in Clarenville’s retail industry for almost 15 years, Bailey has plenty of connections in the area and is looking forward to building up his customer base in time for the summer. 

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“I’m still working with Door Dash part-time just enough until this gets off the ground,” he said. 

“I’d say in the next couple of months I’ll give up Door Dash and just do this full time. I want to build it all up before the summer, have a good customer clientele for the summer and when tourist season comes. It’s perfect timing.”  

‘It was just drop-and-go, drop-and-go’ 

Since launching last week, Bailey says he’s already racked up over 300 kilometres on his Qashqai and has already completed over 50 deliveries as word got around fast. 

While his ‘Bailey’s Delivery’ Facebook page states his official hours are Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Bailey says he’s happy to stretch his hours to get his business off the ground and keep customers happy. 

“I did work last weekend, just a few hours,” he said. 

“On Saturday, I worked from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. because the Canada-USA game was on Saturday night. I took advantage of that. A lot of people wanted to get their KFC and stuff before the game comes on so they could have a few beers. I was home by 9:30 p.m. for the game. Hopefully, they can get back in for the championship game now.”  

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Bailey is still working through establishing his processes and admits things got a little hectic during his first week in operation when five orders came in all at the same time. 

“Oh man, on Friday, it was just drop-and-go, drop-and-go,” he said with a chuckle. 

“I found that Post-It notes are your friend. When customers call, I just line them off on my dash and start dropping them off on my way through. It’s all five-star reviews so far.” 

‘Hopefully, she can build some customers from it too’ 

Bailey says the most popular requests through his first week in business is a dead heat between McDonald’s and Tim Hortons, but hopes that his daughter’s new home bakery business might eat in to some of those requests. 

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“Hopefully, she can build some customers from it too,” he said. 

“She’s only 16, so she’s getting into now. She hasn’t had an order yet but by the time she graduates, she’ll be ahead of the game.” 

While he’s only fulfilling food delivery requests between Clarenville and Georges Brook to start, he’s planning to expand his offerings and his service area as demand for his services begins to grow. 

“I’ve delivered just in Clarenville area so far but I’m going to expand this summer,” he said. 

“Probably to Port Blandford, to the golf course and lakeside. I’m not doing anything else as of yet but eventually, I’ll be picking up pretty much anything that the customer wants. I’m going to get some business cards done up now and put them around in different places. By summer, I’ll be on wheels, hopefully literally.” 

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