MILLEDGEVILLE — Having graduated from Georgia College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration just last summer, 25-year-old Kenny Donovan and his best friend joined their creative minds to develop a unique restaurant delivery service serving the Milledgeville-Baldwin County area. After three months of planning, preparing and networking, the young entrepreneur officially launched KNG Delivery in mid-August.

“Even though the job market is tough, I wanted to start my own business. My best friend from birth, Stephen Garapola, helped me to come up with the business idea. We ended up stumbling on the idea of delivery ... and after evolving over time, I figured Milledgeville doesn’t have a restaurant delivery service. I got in touch with Bulldawg Food in Athens since they do really well business. The guy mentored me and took me through the whole process, who I needed to get in touch with, and what I needed to do to make this a working business.”

Using restaurant delivery software, locals can log onto the KNG website, browse through the various available restaurant menus, customize and place an order, pay via credit card, and have it delivered in an insulated hot bag within 30 to 60 minutes to a place of residence or business in Baldwin County with a 31061 zip code.

“The software handles all orders and sends a fax or e-mail to the restaurant. We internally process the credit orders and dispatch coordinates with the driver for pick-up and delivery. The standard delivery fee is $4.99; this applies to deliveries within a six to seven mile radius of downtown Milledgeville. Deliveries to the outskirts of Milledgeville will have an extra fuel charge for the driver. Students can get a discount of $3.99 for delivery, but they have to follow instructions on the Facebook page to get the discount,” Donovan said. “Orders can be placed in the future as well. You can schedule your delivery in the morning from home and have it delivered to your office later in the day. We accept cash, card and business or company checks, but we don’t take personal checks.”

As of Thursday, participating KNG Delivery restaurants include The Real Deal Grill and More, Metropolis Cafe, Kai Thai, Amici, Margaritas Mexican Grill, Buffington’s, The Brick, The Velvet Elvis, Paradise Country Barbeque and Quiznos downtown and on North Columbia Street.

“The first restaurant that gave me my first shot was The Real Deal Grill and More. They saw the value in KNG’s service and liked it; we’ve been adding restaurants since. We’ve had good steady growth and doubling every month in sales,” Donovan said. “I really appreciate all of the businesses for giving me an opportunity to work with them and help make them some more money. It’s a very simple setup process for any restaurant that wants to be part of KNG. We simply put their menu online with their prices and how they want to receive orders. There is no contract or legal agreement.”

Phillip Joiner, who is in charge of KNG’s marketing and promotions, said Donovan is a good example of the local education system graduating leaders who are giving back to the local community.

“One of the very spoken initiatives of a lot of conferences and groups in town is to engage students in a way so when they graduate they want to stay here and be successful with their educational background; we don’t want to lose our assets. Milledgeville is post-graduate friendly and [Donovan] is an example of that. I think it’s a nice, small victory that can be used down the road for other students to say that they can be successful and give Milledgeville a shot,” Joiner said. “Normally it takes sometimes 12 to 18 months for start-ups to become profitable and KNG has become profitable in its fifth month. Customer feedback is 99 percent positive.”

KNG offers delivery service from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

“Now you don’t have to settle for just ordering pizza. You can order from different restaurants and get a huge variety of different cuisines and it’s still hot and good when it gets to you,” Donovan said. “In the future, I would like to get every single restaurant in Milledgeville on board. I want to eventually go toward the [Lake Sinclair area] and get those restaurants that stand a little further north more involved. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

For more information about KNG, or to place an order, call (478) 234-5825, visit www.kngdelivery.com, or like the KNG Delivery Facebook page.

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