Click-and-Snack: The Fastest Chip in Town? Garlic Bagel.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page D01
Hey, sometimes at 1:35 in the morning you just need a bag of Funyuns, a DVD of Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” and four rolls of Charmin.
That’s when a guy named Vinnie pedals to the rescue.
Elvin “Vinnie” Martinez is one of a few dozen bike “riders” for DCSnacks.com. It’s part 7-Eleven, part CVS, part Blockbuster, which is altogether fitting for these impatient, broadband-connected, junk-food-addicted times. Forget stores. Who wants to stand in line when you can watch Tony have a tiff with Carmela as you wait for your pint of Haagen-Dazs to land on your doorstep?
For many George Washington University students such as Patrice Louis, the Foggy Bottom-based DCSnacks is as much a part of campus life as cramming into a bar called Exchange on a Friday night.
“This is just the most convenient way to pig out, man,” says Louis, 19, whose favorite is Haagen-Dazs vanilla.
A lobbyist on K Street is craving garlic-flavored bagel chips. It’s 10:40 p.m. Tuesday. No problem.
Three roommates in Thomas Circle want six pints of Ben & Jerry’s. It’s 12:15 a.m. Sunday. Solved.
Nearby Georgetown University, American University and Howard University, to name just three, don’t have a similar service, but if you live within a mile of the White House, you can log on, order with your credit card and wait about 20 minutes for delivery, seven days a week, starting at 8 p.m. and staying open on some nights as late as 4 a.m.
Matthew Mandell is the 24-year-old beefy, restless and excitable entrepreneur who came up with the idea. With a borrowed laptop and about $1,000 in capital, Mandell kicked off his venture in January 2003, when he was a junior studying psychology at GW (he graduated in 2004). The business grew.
Three years ago he sold fewer than 50 items. These days, he’s up to more than 800: 31 flavors of Ben & Jerry’s, 11 kinds of Vitamin Water, at least a dozen types of cigarettes and tobacco, Nyquil, Immodium and Monistat, Lean Cuisine cheese ravioli and Hot Pockets ham and cheese, DVDs of Ice Cube’s “Friday” and Diane Keaton’s “Something’s Gotta Give,” the new condom with a vibrating ring, etc. Mandell makes his money off the products; delivery is free.
For two years, Rashid al-Khalifa has ordered almost every night — chicken potpie, Gatorade, lasagna, whatever. He often has guests in his apartment, and a man’s got to play host. The 23-year-old GW sociology student lives on the second floor, and the rider has to toss the order up to him. That’s the only way to deliver to al-Khalifa, 23. “That’s personal service, you know what I’m saying,” he says.
With service like that, what else is there to do but expand? Four months ago, Mandell changed his business’s name from Campus Snacks to DCSnacks and came up with a new slogan: “Fresh Snacks for a Hungry City.” He has about 50 people on his payroll, most of them GW students. Mandell pays his mostly male staff between $7.50 and $15 an hour, depending on their duties.
This isn’t Mandell’s first venture. Before starting his snack company, he was a co-founder of a short-lived, student-run book exchange at GW. But even before that, he was the 13-year-old founder of a party-throwing business called Spotlight Productions. His mom, Susan, and his dad, Bob, worked as crew members while his younger sister, Diana, was in charge of the cotton candy machine. Mandell still owns one. Loves the stuff.
When it comes to his current business, in the 1700 block of G Street NW, he’s a bit secretive. He has been a consultant for a similar business at Columbia University and is “in talks” with “a certain college in Boston” to serve as a consultant there, too. But don’t ask Mandell how much money he’s pulling down. “Revenue? What’s our revenue? That’s how much money we make,” he deadpans, though he’s making enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the city and drive a Lexus 330 RX.
The U.S. Business Directory estimates his company’s sales at $1 million to $2.4 million. Says Mandell, “That’s not completely correct, but not that far off. Let me just say we serve hundreds of customers a night.”
The whole bike thing is a part of DCSnacks’ homey, friendly neighborhood appeal. “It’s perfectly Washington,” Mandell says — if you define Washington as within a mile of the White House. Adams Morgan is still a little far for the riders, as is Howard University. Never mind the rest of the city — at least for now.
Mandell is not willing to rule out further expansion. “We’ll see,” he says.
Lately, Sunday nights have been the busiest of the week.
“Well, you’ve got ‘The Sopranos,’ you’ve got ‘Desperate Housewives,’ and people don’t want to get up. They want to watch TV,” says Geoff Milsom, 22, who mans the phone and stands in front of the PC that lists all the orders. Nearby, Zach Paige, 20, is putting orders in bags — some Jim Beam BBQ beef jerky, five cans of Red Bull — as Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” plays on his laptop.
On this particular Sunday, about 24 orders land between 12:30 a.m. and 1:15 a.m., and no one gets to sit down.
Not even Mandell. He’s got to deliver seven orders. But does the boss hop on a bike? Please. He delivers in his Lexus.
© 2006 The Washington Post
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