Black and Mobile, a Black-owned food delivery app founded in Philadelphia, has expanded to Baltimore with 40 drivers and 20 Black-owned restaurants signed on in the city.
Founder David Cabello got the idea for the business while working for other food delivery services like Caviar, Postmates and Uber Eats. Making $1100 dollars in 30 hours of work on a bike, he thought to himself, “If I can do this on a regular bicycle, how much could I make if I owned the company?” The rest is history.
“Not seeing as many Black-owned restaurants on [other food delivery apps] also motivated me to say, we need to be able to find more Black-owned restaurants,” said Cabello, the CEO of Black and Mobile. “Most people can not name over 20 Black-owned restaurants, but I guarantee they can name that many white restaurants. We know where to go to find everyone else’s businesses but ours.”
During the pandemic, which brought skyrocketing demand for services like food delivery, the business went from making $25,000 to $500,000. This allowed Black and Mobile to expand to Baltimore, Atlanta, and Detroit. It also redesigned the app with Black-owned software development company JumpButton Studio.
At the start of the pandemic in March, Cabello said, “I didn’t even think we were going to be open still.” Two weeks before states started ordering public health restrictions that closed restaurants, the company had just expanded to Detroit. But like a lot of other food delivery services, Black and Mobile was able to stay open.
“We sold three times the amount of food in April than we did the entire 2019,” said Cabello.
