Here’s an idea that office workers and corporate event planners will love: Make a telephone call and within an hour get meals delivered to your office or home from a variety of popular restaurants that otherwise don’t offer delivery.

John McGowan, an entrepreneur who has headed similar restaurant delivery services in Los Angeles and Dallas, last week opened Restaurant Delivery Network. The Clive-based delivery service currently has a dozen restaurants signed up, among them Jimmy’s American Café, Raul’s Mexican Food, Mama Lacona’s Italian Restaurant, Stella’s Blue Sky Diner and Taki Japanese Steakhouse. In addition to individual orders, the company also offers corporate and group buffet order delivery.

“I was very much surprised how much corporate business there was in Des Moines, and there wasn’t any delivery service here,” said McGowan, who relocated to Des Moines so his wife could attend medical school at Des Moines University.

Though restaurant delivery services are common in large cities, previous attempts to start one in Greater Des Moines have had a spotty record. McGowan, though, said he plans apply his experience building up such businesses in larger cities to Des Moines.

RDN offers a printed restaurant guide that features available items from each restaurant, which customers can order by telephone or online at at www.feedu.net. Upon delivery, they pay the menu price listed on the guide, plus a $4.99 delivery fee. The minimum order is $20, and a 15 percent gratuity is included on orders of $40 or more.

Formerly a computer professional, McGowan got into the business four years ago when a friend of his bought a restaurant delivery company in Los Angeles. The two later formed another company, Courier & Chives. With deliveries to Hollywood studios and sets its main focus, the company grew to $3 million in revenues within three years, he said.

After a falling out at Courier & Chives, McGowan went to work for Phoenix-based Delicious Deliveries, launching the company’s operations in the Dallas market.

By negotiating wholesale rates for the menu items it will deliver for each restaurant, the company strives to offer prices that are close to what customers would pay if they sat down at the restaurant, McGowan said. The service also provides a good marketing tool for the participating restaurants, he said.

“It gives them more promotion than what they’re otherwise doing, because we’re out there promoting their restaurant, sometimes more than they can.”

McGowan said he has met with a number of pharmaceutical sales representatives that visit the local hospitals, and hopes to capture some business from them for buffet deliveries timed to their presentations to physicians.

“It’s also great for the hotel business,” he said. “we put the books in the rooms and customers don’t know where to eat; now they have someplace to get the food.”

Jim Lacona, president of Mama Lacona’s of Urbandale, said he’s seen at least three other restaurant delivery services, among them Top Hat and At Your Service, come and go in Des Moines.

“They just kept going out of business,” he said, because the delivery services couldn’t get the orders out within an hour. Those services handled about about $2,000 in weekly deliveries for his restaurant, but a well-run lunch and buffet service could reach $5,000 a week, Lacona said.

“We’ll see how these people do,” he said. “If they do it right, it could be a great thing.”

Restaurant Delivery Network currently has four drivers, but as the service grows, McGowan expects to eventually have about seven drivers working the lunch hour and about the same number for dinner deliveries. The company plans to update its dining menu about every six months, and when the next one comes out, McGowan hopes to have about 25 restaurants for his customers to choose from.

For more information or to order from the company, call 225-0111.