Anthony Perrine is no stranger to delivery.

Perrine, owner of family-owned convenience store Lou Perrine’s Gas & Grocery, Kenosha, Wis., launched the service nearly a decade ago to boost his store’s bottom line.

“Delivery was something we did, but it was not anything huge,” Perrine says.

Fast forward to 2020, and delivery has become one of Lou Perrine’s staples. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Perrine ditched his in-house delivery service and partnered with third-party provider DoorDash to ease the burden on his employees. The change has been “amazing,” he says.

“During the first two months, our deliveries were up a couple-hundred percent,” he says. “It was cool when I did delivery at first, and my platform was okay, but DoorDash is better.”

But Perrine took last-mile ordering beyond delivery. In April, Lou Perrine’s introduced Lou’s To-Go Boxes to help customers stock up on essentials during the pandemic. Included in each $30 box was bacon, a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, a box of cereal, two frozen pizzas, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, bananas and two slices of Lou Perrine’s special Mama P’s HoHo Cake. The boxes were sold via curbside pickup.