by Delaney Rea | photos by Trevor Meyer

**sponsored content by HungryDucks**
It’s 1 a.m. and you’re hungry, but you don’t feel like going out to get food. It’s raining and you’re hungry but you don’t want to get wet. You’re in your pj’s chilling and you’re hungry, but it’s too much effort to get dressed and go out. You’re studying and your brain needs food, but you still have hours of work to do. Sure you can order pizza, but what if you feel like Thai food? Or sushi, or a gyro or barbecue? So who you gonna call??? Hungry Duckbusters… Er no. I mean, HungryDucks.com. And yes, there’s an app for that.  As the founder and market owner of Hungry Ducks, Rabie has played a major role in bringing convenience and accessibility to the food scene in Eugene. The even better news? He’s only getting started.
Hungry Ducks is a food delivery network that connects over 100 restaurants in the Eugene/Springfield area to both UO students and residents of the city. Some of their most popular clients include Falling Sky Pizzeria, Chula’s Cantina & Grill, Caspian Mediterranean Café and many, many others. What began as a fledgling business just over three years ago is now one of the most successful food delivery enterprises of its kind.
It was several years ago that Rabie came to the University of Oregon with grad school ambitions in mind. After checking out what kind of programs the school had to offer, he decided that starting his own business would be just as worthwhile as pursuing another diploma. At his previous alma mater, the University of Colorado, Rabie had worked for a food delivery service that had found respectable success. This business model would ultimately be his inspiration. Given that the mascot of CU was the Buffalo, his previous employer aptly went by the moniker “Hungry Buffs.” As an homage, Rabie chose the name Hungry Ducks.
However, the path to success for Rabie’s new business venture wasn’t immediate. For the first year and a half of their operations, the service sputtered without gaining much traction. Initially, Hungry Ducks only worked with restaurants willing to do their own delivery and provided online ordering as well as marketing services for those clients. With only a limited amount of delivery restaurants near campus, the business never got moving in the right direction.
It would be a simple change in the core business model  that turned things around. When the service began offering delivery in March 2014, the amount of business Hungry Ducks received changed – drastically. “It exploded overnight,” Rabie says of the effect brought by the delivery service. Ever since it became an option, customers took notice. Popularity gained rapidly, and it hasn’t let up in the ensuing years – each year, Hungry Ducks serves more customers and businesses than the last.
In fact, Hungry Ducks has been aggressively attempting to serve a broader customer base. Just recently, the business opened up their delivery range to include Springfield, too. This is far from the only change they’ve recently taken to shake up how they get food to the community. Delivery is now available starting at 8 a.m. each morning and until 2 a.m. on the weekends. Changes like these have had a major effect on Hungry Ducks’ capabilities; since 2016, they’ve more than doubled the number of Eugene and Springfield restaurants whose food they deliver.
Drivers are another aspect of Hungry Ducks that just keeps growing. Though they started out with just handful of  drivers, that number has since ballooned to over 90. Before you send in your application, know that they don’t put just anybody behind the wheel — the line  of waitlisted applicants is quite long. The driver system at Hungry Ducks is similar to the one in place at ride service organizations like Uber or Lyft. The drivers aren’t actually employed by Hungry Ducks; they simply work as independent contractors and get to choose the hours when they want to work. The positions are entry level, so no prior delivery experience is necessarily required. Additionally, Hungry Ducks takes an equal-opportunity approach to its hiring process, as not all of the drivers necessarily have to be students. In this way, the company provides a job market to the greater community of Eugene.
Now that school is back in session for Fall term, Rabie’s business is as busy as ever. During the summer, campus business tends to slow for obvious reasons. Now that everyone’s back and ready to hit the books, Rabie and his team are hitting the ground running with student advertising and tabling outside the EMU. The week of November 6th will be their annual Eat Cheap Week, during which Hungry Ducks will offer a variety of deals and promotions when ordering through their service. However, this is far from the only student-benefitting promotion that the company will offer during the school year. Once finals roll around, you’ll want to look out for their Red Bull sponsored event. With each delivery arriving with a free can of Red Bull during finals week, Hungry Ducks makes itself an ally to all studying ducks. It’s partnerships like these that allow Hungry Ducks to make college life just that much easier.
The only part that isn’t easy is deciding who to place an order with on Hungry Ducks’ intimidatingly stacked roster of restaurants and eateries. With so many delicious options, it’s hard not to play favorites. Rabie admits to having a special affinity for some of his service’s Thai food options. Manola’s Thai Cuisine, Sweet Basil Express, and Chao Pra Ya are a few he counts among his favorites. It’s popular restaurants like these that Rabie sets his sight on for collaborators.
Rabie intends to continue expanding the Hungry Ducks empire as much as possible, which means breaking outside of the UO area. While the initial market was intended only for students, good ideas are hard to confine when residents, business offices and hotels in town have discovered the convenience of food delivery.
The stork may deliver babies but Hungry Ducks will deliver your food; over and over again. It’s just so easy, you may never leave your home again. When it comes to an abundance of food options to be delivered to your door, Hungry Ducks is the only game in town.
Find Hungry Ducks online at HungryDucks.com and through their app, Hungry Ducks Delivery.