Ledger-Enquirer from Columbus, Georgia • 6

Monday January 111993 (Columbus leiigrrHnquircr Living 16 Have ood Will Tmvcl eeling lazy? Degucci will bring food to your door By Richard Hyatt 1 Senior Writer Pelle Degucci knew deep in his taste buds that there had to be more to life than pizza There was If he wanted to put on his driving clothes and venture out into the night But if he wanted phone food life went only a little beyond pepperoni was lazy and I was a he said wanted more than i Nothing against Domino's or the other places that now deliver just man cannot live on tomato sauce alone He must have meat He must have potatoes He must have ribs He "must have food as close as his doorbell Now there is a choice Even and their familiar cardboard boxes have expanded into breadsticks and salads Now there is Steak Out a steak place in Gentian Corners that will bring a rib eye(o your door If you work on Broad will bring an inside Jcut sandwich with hot sauce right to lourdesk Degucci himself offers the ultimate iehoice His company Express Gourmet Deliv ery delivers food from 10 different local peateries with the promise that thenumber of restaurants will soon double i I Degucci 28 operated his first business hen he was a 20 year old college student in Montgomery None of his past experience however was in the food Seven months ago he opened on Cody Road inspired mainly by his lown trash "I would watch the pizza boxes stack in the kitchen I knew there was he said Before he went into business he readan article about a similar operation in He went there to visit to watch to learn heard some horror stories and IQeard some good stories The business inAtlanta showed me how they were then I heard about two or three others and visited Not that he could learn everything to know That would come bydoing it and not doing it be honest we were overwhelmed first There were problems that no jone could have told us about We were 1 date on a lot of orders I only hope those people understood that we were newand that they will give us another Degucci said When he set out with his idea he found local restaurants reluctant but acceptant They know what to expect from him and the feeling was mutual His primary problem then and now is scheduling How' many drivers should he have on duty? What day of the weeh is busiest? What days of the month are busiest? When is payday? What about the weather? These are factors he has learned to balance like the he said raining we put on extra drivers because people want to get out the same when it is really cold Then in the summertime when really hot people are just Lazy a malady that strikes only in hot weather Not that laziness is the only reason people use their phone to satisfy their appetite Otherwise why are the roads filled with cars that have glowing signs lettering on their radio antenna? Unlike the pizza joints Degucci has no oven and no kitchen Like the customer he relies only on his phone that and a two way radio system he uses to dispatch drivers A person calls Express Gourmet and orders from his restaurant of choice as long as it is on the list Degucci offers the same basic menu that a sit down customer would use though he discour ages items that do not heat up well such as rench ries deliver within 45 minutes of the call and we have special bags to keep the food warm But we tell people not to expect the food to be as hot or tasty as it would be in the Degucci said He charges the same price you would pay at the checkout counter but adds on a $300 surcharge per delivery regard less of how many meals are ordered Tips are accepted even encouraged Degucci a native of Auburn Ala soon will open in Auburn and Montgom ery He has other ideas he talking about but he did talk about one Recognizing that his drivers could deliver more than Chinese or Mexican he plans to expand start taking grocery orders for people who are shut in and get to the His first order of business however is to improve his current service just now perfecting David Bonaker does the waiting for his customers at a local restaurant while employee Jennifer Hampton totals the order uH i as AiftlWfc 1 0 Bfc 7 MB MB liMBEk mill Pelle Degucci David Bonaker prepares his car for the deliveries i the same old story Channel 9 No 1 again Odds and ends from the overcrowded notebook: NUMBERS GAME WTVM continues to dominate the local news ratings Surprise surprise In the important 6 slot the ALAC owned station harvested a 27 rating (percentage of all TV households tuned to a particular station) in the November Nielsens seven points better than the other three local stations COMBINED Impressed? You have to go back to May of 1988 to find a case where this did not happen Channel 27 rating follows two rather lackluster (for them) books of 23 and 22 respectively Two of its competitors also registered modest gains in November newscast i''" grabbed an 11 rating (after two single digit books) while WXTX with reruns of Trek: The Next pulled a 7 rating evening newscast captured but 2 percent of the viewers WTVM easily won the 1 1 pm time slot as well pulling a 17 rating its best performance since May 1991 Somewhat Surprisingly Hall continue to plunge in the ratings rom a high of 9 in July 1990 it was able to snare only a 3 in November That tied it with Griffith late newscast with a 7 rating was second in the time period The next Nielsen survey begins locally Jan 25 and runs through late ebruary RIGHT ON JAMES ormer Slate House candidate James White have a problem with name recognition if and when he decides to run for public office again started up his own television program Right (yes a conservative Republican) debuted this week on TV 16 designed to promote conservative said White who lost to Carolyn Hugley in the District 133 election The show airs live each Wednesday at 7:30 pm and is repeated on ridays at 6 pm His first guest was school board chief Dan Doleman HELP WANTED Still no new hires at Sunny 100 and WCGQ to fill evening announcing positions Robert Cunningham (the CVCC guru) has been sitting in at Sunny between 7 and midnight since Alan departure overnight man James Steele has been filling the chair previously occupied by Dave Kelly at WCGQ between 8 and midnight Producing the late newscast at WTVM TV is Mark Steinke a University of Missouri grad Cyndy Cerbin produces the 6 o'clock program YOU TOUCH THIS The hype over the debut of Space Nine" is about over now let that for begin The hype over the debut of "Deep Space Nine" is about over now let that for "The Untouchables" begin You heard right Paramount has come up with a version of the cult hit starring Tom Amandes in the Eliot Ness role He may be a suitable answer to Bob Stack but who in the world can do a better job than Neville Brand as Al Capone? The syndicated series debuts with a two hour movie on WLTZ TV 38 riday night (8 10 pm) then joins the Channel 38 lineup each Sunday al 11 pm effective Jan 24 OR YOUR INORMATION So many of you have called for the address of the Viewers for Quality Television the lobbying group which hopes to save ly and from extinction that I thought run it Please write the VQT in care of Dorothy Swanson Box 195 airfax Station Va 22039 Time is running out THIS JUST IN The death knell just rang for the sleazy which features little but the pawing of Markie Post by John Ritter In trying to appease prudish advertisers series creator Linda Bloodworth Thomason (Bill chum) will soon have the characters played by Ritter and Post marry get them married to make everybody more she said already put the network on notice going to be just as sophisticated with the only difference being they keep their hands off each other but now Question Linda: Who wants to see married people making whoopee on TV? Big mistake! Mick Walsh is the Ledger Enquirer media columnist.