A new way to order restaurant food recently made its way to Cincinnati.
Cincybite, a third-party food delivery service created by local restaurant owner Robbie Sosna, who runs
Freshii's downtown franchise, opened December 2 and is now fully operational.
Sosna, who grew up in Cincinnati, returned from Los Angeles after working a variety of jobs in the film, television and restaurant industries. He then began laying the groundwork for Cincybite, met with support from many surrounding restaurants.
"Once I got established in Cincinnati, I started looking for a third-party delivery service, and it just didn't exist," Sosna says. "I kept saying, 'Somebody needs to do this, somebody needs to do this,' and at some point I said, 'Well, I'm going to be the person who does it, because I understand the value and benefit, being a restaurant owner'."
Cincybite, functioning both online and by phone, currently delivers food from Freshii, Buca di Beppo, Jefferson Social, El Coyote, Local's Bar & Grill, and M Wood Fired Pizza.
"I started talking to some people and to the restaurants, and everybody realized very quickly that this was a service necessary for the city," Sosna says. "I wanted to do a smaller platform launch, so now that we've kind of worked out all of the kinks and everything seems to be functioning properly, we're getting ready to put up the additional restaurants and keep on going from there."
Cincybite service extends to downtown Cincinnati, OTR, Clifton, Columbia Tusculum, Walnut Hills, Hyde Park, Oakley, Norwood, Covington and Newport, with plans to expand to the northern suburbs along I-75 as the business develops.
"We have four restaurants that we will launch by the end of January, and then after that, now that we're an established business, many restaurants are contacting us," Sosna says. "Up until this point, for the most part, all you've been able to deliver is pizza or a random Chinese restaurant that might be in your neighborhood. But delivery has not been an actual part of our life here."
Open 7 days a week from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Cincybite's delivery prices range from $4.99 - $6.99, varying by location.
"We're 30 minutes for downtown deliveries," Sosna says. Or if you live in Hyde Park, Clifton, Oakley, Norwood, Columbia Tusculum or Mount Adams, we'll say it'll be 45 minutes from a downtown restaurant, and vise versa."
By Kyle Stone
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