Carefully curated restaurant delivery company expands to Peninsula

Yet another San Francisco food delivery startup has expanded to the Peninsula, hoping to offer a more exclusive, carefully curated service in a very saturated market.

Caviar, which officially launched locally last week, focuses on connecting hungry consumers with the most popular, well-rated restaurants in their area.

“We have very strict criteria,” said CEO Jason Wang. “People trust that we deliver only the best food.”

This means Caviar restaurants must have four stars on Yelp and at least 1,000 reviews (but if it’s new and critically acclaimed, it could make the cut). The company also has a team that taste tests every single food item offered for delivery. And though the name connotes high-end, some Peninsula restaurants that have made the cut range from Pampas and Café Pro Bono to Caffe Riace, Tacolicious and Asian Box in Palo Alto; Jeffrey’s Hamburgers and Sultana in Menlo Park; Donato Enoteca, Martin’s West Gastropub and Aly’s on Main in Redwood City.

Caviar will deliver from any of these restaurants to users as far north as Burlingame and as far south as Palo Alto.

View the full Peninsula restaurant list here. Wang said moving forward, they’ll be adding one or two new restaurants each week.

Each menu item offered also comes with a high-resolution photo.

“We’re really food-focused,” Wang touted.

Caviar charges a flat $9.99 delivery fee, which Wang points out could be made more affordable if you split the fee with a group of friends or coworkers. A shared card feature makes it easy to do so. Caviar also does deliveries for entire companies.

There is no minimum-order requirement and first delivery is on the company. And like any other delivery startup that wants to make it in an increasingly competitive sub-industry in the Valley, Caviar offers real-time GPS tracking so you can conveniently watch as your food approaches its destination. Users can also order meals and schedule deliveries up tot six days in advance – handy perhaps for a work meeting or event.

Caviar was born in 2012 in an office in San Francisco’s Financial District. Wang and three coworkers, hungry for food from their favorite restaurants that didn’t offer delivery, were willing to pay someone $10 to pick up said food and drop it off. The company has since expanded to 70 employees and operates in cities across the country, including Boston, Chicago, New York City, Seattle and Washington D.C.