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Inside Home Delivery
by Joshua Green
Originally published February 2005

The mercury dips below zero, the cold winds howl and the view out of your bedroom window is a wonderland of ice and snow. The last thing you want to do is go out into the cold for dinner. But the fridge is empty, the grocery stores are closed and the nearest fast food is a fifteen-minute walk away. There's only one option left, it's time to order a pizza. Or is it? One of the surprises that Prague has in store is a good selection of restaurants offering home delivery, in some cases 24 hours a day (non-stop in local parlance). From tasty hot pizzas to your favorite Indian food, you'll surely find something to please you.

The Old Faithfuls
Pizza Go Home has eight locations in Prague and offers 24-hour delivery. The menu offers a good selection of pizzas, salads, chicken, and desserts. Prices are quite reasonable, starting at 65 CZK for a small Pizza Margherita (24cm) up to 190 CZK for a large (32cm) Four Seasons pizza. A good selection of drinks is also available; in fact, the drink menu alone is sometimes reason enough to call Pizza Go Home. Both Czech and Italian wines are offered, ranging from the basic Frankova red wine (89 CZK), to the Italian Chianti (190 CZK) and San Bartolo (560 CZK). Bohemia Sekt is also available for 180 CZK (about 50% more than you would pay in the grocery store) and 33cl cans of Gambrinus and Pilsner Urquell are on the menu for 19 CZK and 25 CZK respectively.

Which brings us to service. Since Pizza Go Home has no minimum order, you can use them just to order in some drinks when supplies run low on those late nights at home. I gave them a call just to make sure. The receptionist told me that the delivery price is 21 CZK minimum and a maximum of 101 CZK for anywhere in Prague, late night deliveries (midnight - 7am) are charged a 10% premium, and there is no minimum order. No minimum order? "So I can order one beer?" I asked. "Yes" she responded, "One beer is no problem, the delivery price is the same no matter what you order". The only real drawback with Pizza Go Home is that on busy nights they can take slightly longer than an hour to deliver. More importantly, less than half of their operators speak English well enough for a non-Czech speaker to place an order.

Himalaya is an Indian fast food restaurant that also offers home delivery. The menu features a wide selection of Indian fare ranging from 75 CZK for chicken curry to 199 CZK for lamb shashlick. The drinks menu is limited and consists of soft drinks and beer. Food is delivered within 45 - 60 minutes for a minimum delivery fee of 50 CZK. Like Pizza Go Home, Himalaya has no minimum order for home delivery, so I tried the one beer test and once again discovered that ordering one beer would be just fine.

Haveli was the last stop on the tour of restaurants which offer home delivery. This fine Indian restaurant's extensive menu offers main dishes priced from 170 - 400 CZK. Home delivery is free for an order of 1,000 CZK or more, but not surprisingly, delivery of one beer was impossible.

Home Delivery Services
Home Delivery services are the intermediary between the customer and restaurants who don't have their own delivery service. Generally speaking, you call the third party service to place your order, then they pick it up from the restaurant and deliver it to you. You pay the same price you would pay in the restaurant, but there is usually a minimum purchase in order to get the food delivered. The two largest such services are Food Taxi and EuroBest, but if you're thinking about having lunch delivered to your office, Diet Delivery can help you out.

Food Taxi has twenty-two participating restaurants that cover pretty much every kind of food you're likely to want on a regular basis (Mexican, Chinese, Italian, International …). Food is delivered in 45 - 60 minutes for a minimum delivery fee of 50 CZK. When ordering from Food Taxi you will pay the same price you would pay in the restaurant, but the minimum order is 300 CZK. The Food Taxi website is available in both English and Czech, but when I called, their receptionist could not speak English at all. She still gets an 'A' for effort as if I didn't understand something she told me in Czech, she pulled out a dictionary and told me the word in English.

In principle, customers should contact Food Taxi to place an order for delivery from any of the restaurants they work with, but there seem to be some exceptions. The excellent Tiger Tiger Thai restaurant has its own "Take Away" menu available in the restaurant. When you call the number listed on the menu, Tiger Tiger answers to take your order and they tell you that it will be delivered by Food Taxi. On the other hand, Peking (a Chinese restaurant) said that for home delivery I must call Food Taxi. They gave me the phone number, but didn't have any additional information about the service.

EuroBest works with eleven well known restaurants in Prague (Bohemia Bagel, Radost FX, Potrefena Husa, Red Fish Sushi …) and home delivery of groceries is also offered. But if EuroBest can offer some of the best-known restaurants, they charge you the privilege of indulging yourself. Deliveries are made in 45 - 60 minutes and the minimum delivery fee is 160 CZK. EuroBest has an English-speaking receptionist who is quite knowledgeable and friendly and their website is available in both English and Czech.

Diet Delivery is a new company that offers free delivery of 'home-cooked' lunches anywhere in Prague. This innovative service offers three different menus arranged according to your dietary needs; dishes are priced from 70 CZK - 90 CZK. The Atkins diet offers 11 different high-protein meals and vegetarian and non-diet menus (standard Czech fare) are also available. But the minimum order is five dishes and you must place your order by 9:30 a.m. on the day you want your meal. Menus are available on the website (Czech only).

Addresses:

Diet Delivery
09:00 - 22:00
Tel. 222 220 716
608 802 800
www.dietdelivery.cz

Eurobest delivery
Václavské námestí 17
110 00 Prague 1
09:30 - 22:30
Tel. 241 491 865
www.eurobest.cz

Food Taxi
Mo - Sa: 10:00 - 21:30
Su: Closed
Tel. 777 17 13 94
www.foodtaxi.cz

Haveli
Dejvická 6
160 00 Prague 6
11.00 - 23.00
Tel. 233 344 800

Himalaya
Mikovcova 7
120 00 Prague 2
Mo-Fr:11:00 - 23 :00
Sa-Su: 12 :00 - 23 :00
Tel. 224 231 581
603 146 464

Pizza Go Home
Open 24 hours
www.pizzagohome.cz