We all know that feeling. That end-of-a-long-day, kids-are-starving, what-can-I-make-for-dinner feeling. Too many nights, the answer is pizza, microwave mac ‘n cheese or take out. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a pre-made, pre-cooked delicious and healthy meal ready for us when we got home?
That dream can be your reality with a dinner delivery service. Two local businesses—The Good Plate and Dinner at Your Door—have built loyal followings from busy parents who want to spend more time with their kids and less time grocery shopping, menu planning, cooking and cleaning up the kitchen.
Both services offer a simple online menu and ordering system that makes it easy to schedule multiple dinners ahead of time. Prices for Dinner at Your Door and The Good Plate deliveries are in the same ballpark (roughly $45 - $50 per meal for a family), though each serves a slightly different niche. Here’s a look:
The Good Plate
Teri Hull was inspired to start The Good Plate by her love of food, healthy eating, gardening and running. She attended culinary school and then added a commercial kitchen into her Vancouver home to deliver— literally—her love of fine food to overwhelmed working mothers.
The Good Plate’s niche is in bringing the restaurant to your dining room. The farm-to-table menu delivers cuisine and presentation. Each meal is plated restaurant-style and sealed in a high-tech tray to keep everything fresh.
The food is sourced mainly at the Vancouver Farmers Market and a local farm in Washington. The menu highlights the best of the season, changes frequently, and features three or four entrees each week. Hull’s stepsons, “the dashing delivery dudes,” help out with the semi-weekly deliveries.
Dinner at Your Door
Margot Feves came at her business, Dinner at Your Door, from the other direction. While working as a nanny to her niece, she saw first-hand the exhaustion of the working parent. Margot saw an opportunity to give her sister and brother-in-law more time to catch up with their daughter by stocking their kitchen with homemade, prepared meals they could simply heat up and enjoy.
“The whole idea is to alleviate one less night to worry about what is for dinner. When you have kids, there is no way to quantify what your time is worth, but I think of dinner delivery as the gift of two hours.”
Dinner at Your Door delivers complete meals in reusable glass containers that can go from oven to table and are picked up the following week. Feves says the glass is key to her mission of giving parents the experience of a home-cooked family dinner that doesn’t feel —or look— like take-out.
The menu at Dinner at Your Door changes weekly, and you can see what the options are going to be for the next four months. The food is very approachable, with dishes that you would actually cook for your family... if you had more time.
—Jessica Davis
