Home to Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly and billionaire philanthropist Walter Annenberg, the Main Line has been associated with wealth and good taste since its eponymous Pennsylvania Railroad line was laid in the 19th century. More recently, native sons Rich Siegel, 25, and Danny Ritterman, 24, returned to the area after graduating with university degrees in chemical engineering and political science, respectively. Together, they launched MainLineDelivery.com in November of 2008 to bring the area's most-wanted bites to customers from Bala Cynwyd to Villanova.

For a flat fee of $5.99 (or $1.99 from Saffron Indian Kitchen and Tiffin), customers can order from 30 restaurants through the website or over the phone, including Azie on Main, Elevation Burger, Du Jour, Yangming, Primavera Pizza Kitchen, Fuji Mountain and SangKee Asian Bistro. Service areas are zoned by zip code; for quality control, not all restaurants are delivered to all zip codes.

We caught up with Siegel to talk about making the transition from chemical engineering to customer service and how technology has changed the game for young entrepreneurs.

Flying Kite (FK): Q. Do you have a background in the restaurant industry?
Rich Siegel (RS): No, I went to college for chemical engineering, and after graduating, just needed a break from the lab. This is a business that I knew we could start and fund on our own, and it would be instantly profitable.

FK: You were instantly profitable?
RS: We made back our initial investment in March of 2010, and we've been cashflow-positive since day one of launching.

FK: What is your day-to-day role in the business?
RS: When we started, it was just the two of us driving around with iPhones. We did the first few thousand deliveries ourselves. Now Danny is in law school, so I run the business full time with one full-time employee and fifteen drivers.

FK: Where is your headquarters?
RS: We're located in Ardmore, near Lower Merion High School; it's been our office since we moved out of the apartment where we started.

FK: How do the restaurants get involved with the service?
RS: In the beginning, the challenge was convincing restaurants to sign up--we had just three restaurants at first. Now we work with 30 restaurants and do more than 500 deliveries a week. We have 10,000 regular customers. It's a great deal for restaurants, because I'm basically just writing them a check every week [for food delivered] and it's free marketing for them. There is some cannibalization of their existing takeout business, but in my experience die-hard customers who would come in once a week will instead get delivery two or three times a week.

FK: How has harsh winter weather affected your business?
RS: Snow is a dual-edged sword. When the weather guys are calling for it, it will improve business because people don't want to go out there. If it gets really bad, we'll run until I deem it's too bad to put guys out there. I can't put my drivers at risk.

FK: How do you see MainLineDelivery.com going forward?
RS: We're expanding our deliveries to Wayne in March and King of Prussia this summer. We're growing faster than we ever thought � the desire for this service is universal. Ninety-five percent of our business comes through the website, and that number will likely increase as more people get comfortable with the idea of placing orders through a website.

Similar delivery services are out there, but they have not dominated the market. You have to carve out a territory because it's hard to compete once one service has exclusive contracts with restaurants in a certain area. There is a similar service in Philadelphia that does well; we're the go-to for the Main Line.

FK: Speaking of Philadelphia, why do you think suburban restaurants are regarded as inferior to city eateries?
RS: There are many great restaurants on the Main Line, certainly just as good as any in the city. One of the places we deliver from, Yangming, was just named the best Chinese restaurant in the country [by trade publication Chinese Restaurant News]. This is a very wealthy area; high-end restaurants that have great food can do very well.

FK: What can other entrepreneurs learn from your experience?
RS: With technology today, we have opportunities to start a new business that would have been very complicated five or ten years ago. A decade ago, this company would have been so much more difficult to run. Now, 60 seconds after the order is placed, it goes to a dispatcher; a minute and a half later, it's in the restaurant's hands. Drivers can click on their iPhones to get directions from a customer � technology has changed the game. Two kids with iPhones can make it happen.

The fact is, college grads steeped in technology are seeing opportunities other people aren't seeing. I hired our first employee as the general manager of the website, working five days a week. GM of a website is an interesting new job title, and I'm sure we'll see more of them.

I'd like to be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life.

FELICIA D'AMBROSIO is a Philadelphia-based food writer. Her work also appears in City Paper, GRID, Metro, and Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.

PHOTOS:

Rich Siegel

From left, drivers Jake Abramowitz and Brian McCarthy and general manager John "Quincy" Adams.

Photos courtesy of Main Line Delivery