The GET: STORY

GET:’s Founder and CEO, John Yianni, is a lawyer by vocation but entrepreneur at heart who has carried a passion for restaurant food and hospitality. He used to see it like this: -

“If you can’t get to a good restaurant you may as well cook at home. Why? Because even if you could find a decent London restaurant that delivers, by the time the food gets to you with one of those random guys on push-bikes or mopeds, it is ruined. The thing’s been bashing around in a grubby bag while being carried by some poor guy or gal pushing-up a bicycle on an incline and back down in the pouring rain for the best part of the last 20 minutes. It’s a fact that 'it is common' for riders to dip into the food. Who expects any different from someone who is on a '0-hour' contract getting paid a measly commission and who is required to bear the costs of their own bikes and equipment? In fact some of these guys ‘sign-up’ with ease as riders to whatever platform they supposedly work for, often signing-up to all of them, with the hope that they might also have access to something to eat.

I love restaurants, I admire restaurant owners. Although as a lawyer I come across some pretty smart people, I can tell you this; from all the smart and ambitious people I have met throughout my life, there is no businessperson I would bow-down to like I would for a restaurateur. It is the toughest business anyone can involve themselves in and the good guys do it because they are obsessed with providing good quality food and hospitality. Especially the independent restaurants that are so often family run; they are the proudest protectors of their reputations. This goes back to my initial point, most proud and reputable restaurants despised the thought of allowing some external delivery service to get their hands on their hard earned reputation given the imbalance of pride and care taken by these external delivery services. The external delivery model worked just fine for low-end, fast-food takeaways or the big franchises. But quality focused restaurants and customers simply did not fit this model. That’s until the launch of GET:

As a result of the global pandemic it was heart-breaking to see London's independent restaurants, once buzzing with ambience, so derelict and soulless. I have friends and family with restaurants, and I can tell you it is not just their financial health that is ‘hit for six’ but so are their spirits that were kept burning by doing the thing they lived for. Proud restaurateurs do not want to just provide takeaway services, even if this could generate enough cash to keep them going. They are more concerned about their reputation, that same concern that stopped them from picking-up the phone and getting on to those external delivery guys in the first place. Well, because of the restrictions imposed on their restaurants, many have had no choice but to begrudgingly join a delivery platform. Similarly, demanding food customers, just like me, don’t always want to be cooking the same things at home or taking a punt at ordering a takeaway while crossing my fingers it will arrive edible, or at least arrive at all.

I wanted to put things right. I wanted to give restaurants and customers something to be excited about, to reignite the passion for restaurant food and service, even if it's off-site and provided at home. I wanted to replicate insofar as possible the quality of food and service delivered to the customers' home. I listened and thought about all the reasons good quality restaurants avoid external delivery providers. I listed the problems and perceptions carefully, they are vast. But what came next was the most fulfilling aspect of the exercise. Next to each problem I noted many possible solutions. The sum of these solutions was the birth of GET: and the upshot of it all was this:

Genuine partnership with independent restaurants and with whom we will engage and cooperate in the best interests of their restaurant, their staff, and their customers. We will be as proud and as meticulous about their food, as we are about the service we provide. We will do everything differently; we will do it for our restaurant partners; not for us. We will do it for their customers, and we will do it in such a way that is socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable. I needed the right corporate team to achieve this, so I set about building that team. But even more crucially I needed the right technology and the best people to be the GET: Riders

When you drive or walk along the street and see GET: Riders, who we have called ‘G: Riders’, you will know they are different. You will know they only ride on electronic vehicles, that they are employed on permanent contracts, that they have been trained to the highest standard. You will know that they do not linger around the streets and that they have a physical base from which they work and play (we have 4000 square foot of space for them with chill-out rooms, kitchens, games area). You will know that they are so well looked after that they do not tamper with food. You will know that your proud restaurant owners have chosen them to be good enough for their loyal customers. Yes, this all costs us a lot of money and time, but who cares about the cost when we need to do something to help our restaurant partners, society, and you at home.