WASHINGTON — Editor's Note: The CEO of Frolick announced that effective Aug. 5, 2022, the app service had been indefinitely suspended. The original article in full can be read below.
After living in the 2020s and going through a pandemic that made it hard to leave the house, most of us know what ordering food off of an app is like.
You sift through restaurants; find one you recognize or an establishment with more than a couple of gold-star reviews. You pick a meal with a price that looks comparable to what you'd see if you were sitting there at a table - maybe $14 or so.
Then its checkout time. And that's where the real price comes up: somewhere north of $25 - plus, don't forget to tip!
With fees, tips and taxes, ordering food delivery can feel a little like Russian roulette when you're on a budget. Even the DC Attorney General has called for more transparency in the "bait and switch" pricing practices that feel rampant on food delivery apps.
Now, one D.C.-based company has entered the arena to try and bring customers a bit of justice.
With the app, Frolick, what you see is what you get: if it says $12.95, that's what it'll be - no surprises at checkout and no subscription required. It's a promise made in their motto, "No Delivery Fees, Tips or Surcharges, Ever!"
Instead of depending on gig workers as some other delivery services do, Founder and George Washington University grad Jipy Mohanty said that Frolick's drivers are employed by the company and are paid "in excess of $20 an hour," therefore eliminating the need to rely on extra charges or tips.
The iOS app is currently downloadable on the App Store and debuted on Google Play on July 7. It offers a menu of about 10 to 20 meals made daily by a handful of chefs out of a local kitchen. Options from traditional to gluten-free or vegan are at users' fingertips.
Although no restaurants are featured on the app, just original meals, it otherwise works similarly to its competitors with a mish-mash of concepts from other kinds of delivery services. You'll select a pre-made meal at least an hour in advance and it will be brought to you just in time for lunch at 1 p.m. or dinner at 7 p.m.
Mohanty said he got the idea while working, when busy life felt like a blur. He'd usually get stuck doing what we all do in the midst of a long and exhausting week - when cooking feels like it has to be last on the agenda.
"I end up half the time eating leftovers and frozen meals," he shared. "But frozen food, fast food, restaurant delivery ends up being very expensive."
He knew there needed to be an alternative to hungrily throwing money at an app with sky-high delivery fees.
"When I'm eating at my desk, I shouldn't be paying restaurant prices for expensive food when all I want just is decent food," Mohanty said.
And that's where the concept of Frolick was born.
So, what's the catch? Mohanty says there isn't one - and that from the start, the team worked hard to make sure the food cost was kept low, while quality remained high. The team traveled to cities across the country to source chefs to work in the local kitchen, brainstorm recipes and create tasty dishes.
After the food is ready to go, delivery drivers will take groups of deliveries and drop them off in one trip, reducing the need to drive back and forth frequently and cutting costs. All excess meals, he said, are donated to local area food banks.
It's a service where customers can depend on the price they're seeing.
"Everything is inclusive, and it just arrives on your door, at the same time, same day," shared Mohanty.
After delivering its first meals in February, the app currently serves most of the District and Northern Virginia, with hopes to soon expand to Maryland along with the rest of the country eventually.
"We pass on all the savings and efficiency back to you, by making the food much more affordable," he said.