Two high school seniors open own food, grocery delivery service

Emily Adams-Bentley, The Times-Tribune, Corbin, Ky.
·4 min read

Jan. 21—LONDON — While most high school seniors are focused on prom and graduation, Jared Baker and Connor Hollon have spent most of their senior year so far growing their business.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hollon approached Baker about offering a grocery delivery service to locals which has since grown to a food delivery service. Since then, the pair have made over 400 deliveries to customers in Corbin and London in the past four months through their business CJ on the Way.

After seeing that the grocery delivery business wasn't taking off like they had hoped, the business partners began looking at other options and expanded to a food delivery service.

"We saw a gap in the food delivery market," Baker said. "We saw that bigger companies were getting a lot of complaints about friendliness, professionalism with their drivers and everything, so we thought we could bring a new face to the market and be strictly focused on cleanliness, professionalism."

"We've heard a lot of complaints and it's no disrespect to anyone else but we, especially where we're local, wanted to help benefit the residents of London and bring something else to the table to choose from," Hollon said.

Their business, CJ on the Way, allows customers to place orders from local restaurants, as well as make grocery orders, to be delivered directly to their homes up to 10 miles outside of London and Corbin.

To place a food order from a restaurant, customers can go to the business's website and go to the tab "restaurant delivery" where they can type in their name, address and restaurant they would like to order from and type their order into the order form. Hollon said CJ on the Way will even place the food order or a customer can go ahead and place the order themselves to be picked up by the delivery driver.

To place a grocery delivery order, customers can place their own pickup order online from Kroger or Walmart or they can fill out a grocery list for CJ on the Way to do their shopping for them at no additional cost.

CJ on the Way will respond to the customer with a text to let them know their order has been received, verify how they would like to pay and let them know the order total and an estimated delivery time.

"As we get bigger, we want to make it more convenient to where they can order directly through our website or app without having to type everything but that's a work in progress," Hollon said.

Customers can pay through Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay or Cash App. To make it more convenient for customers, CJ on the Way even takes cash payments, something other food delivery services do not offer. Baker and Hollon are working on setting up other payment options, as well.

Hollon said CJ on the Way has an average delivery time of 30-45 minutes, which is only one way their business compares to other food delivery services, as CJ on the Way has implemented several safety protocols such as keeping their cars cleaned out to ensure cleanliness and safety to customers.

"In comparison to other services, I think we are the cheapest, most affordable company out there," Baker said. "We only charge $4.99 plus 50 cents per mile from the restaurant, meanwhile something like DoorDash will charge up to $6, they'll charge 10 percent of your entire order and then also a big thing, this is why restaurants like doing business with us, all your other delivery companies charge a 30 to 40 percent commission off their sales and we charge zero."

Baker and Hollon have several goals to grow their business as more and more orders are coming in, such as expanding how far they will deliver orders, having a small freezer in their vehicles to keep drinks and other items cold on deliveries and developing an app and more efficient website for customers to order directly from. Eventually, the pair said they may even begin looking for other delivery drivers to help take on orders.

"We've grown way faster than we could've ever imagined," Baker said. "When we first started, it was mostly just the same faces over and over and as we're getting more and more recognition, we're starting to see a lot of new faces."

Hollon and Baker hope to continue offering a safe and convenient way for customers to have their food orders delivered directly to their homes for years to come.

CJ on the Way is open Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. For updates on their business, follow CJ on the Way on Facebook or to place an order visit their website at http://Cjontheway.com/.