How it all started…
What You Can Expect
This is a personal grocery service.
I remember your brands. I know your preferences. I text when I have a question, not to worry about a timer.
I help people get their groceries into the house. Sometimes that means carrying bags to the fridge. In some cases, I’ll put the groceries away. Some customers are blind, and I have no problem putting the groceries away if it makes it easier.
Happy to help.
This isn’t about convenience. It’s about connection and reviving a sense of community in grocery delivery. There are skilled shoppers with excellent service abilities who would make exceptional personal shoppers. All a customer asks for is to get a shopper who cares. That’s what we do.
Jonathan Shops is a resource for customers and the grocery stores they enjoy. Our knowledge of sales, delivery schedules, produce, and specific needs is what sets us apart from traditional delivery platforms. We don’t need an app for that. We deliver our promises.
If you’re interested in signing up for service, please complete the form.
…the store referral.
I owe it to gig work for the permission to be places. Front porches. Grocery stores. Parking lots. All of it. After 9,000 orders, you don't just see the store, you become part of its ecosystem.
That consistent presence is why, when a customer’s app failed, the store manager didn't call support. He handed the phone to me. I took her list, delivered her groceries, and realized that personal shopping isn't a gig; it's a relationship.
Personal grocery shopping became my thing. Gig work opened a door that gave me access to new relationships. Shopping for others means something.
My business is not about being fast. Your groceries will be perfect. The bagging will be excellent. If something is out-of-stock, I can grab it at another store later. Rushing to get your grocery order fulfilled is not how I do things. There are apps for that.
So yea, that’s how Jonathan Shops came to be.
…which led to Porch Pilot.
When I started my personal grocery service, I did what every new business owner does: I tried everything. Social media ads that vanished into the scroll. Online listings buried on page four. Flyers pinned to community boards that nobody read. I was spending money and getting silence.
Then I tried something almost embarrassingly old-fashioned. I printed door hangers and spent a weekend walking the neighborhoods closest to me, hanging an offer on every front door I passed.
The leads started to come in.
Not a flood, something better. Neighbors. People who lived five minutes away, who'd seen my offer while carrying in their own groceries and thought, I could use this. They became customers, and then they told the family next door, and the couple across the street.
That's when it clicked. The digital world had trained me to chase strangers, when my best customers were living right around the corner. A door hanger can't be skipped, blocked, or lost in a spam folder. It arrives at the exact place the decision gets made: the front door of a home that's within range of your service. It's personal. It says: I'm local. I'm close. I came to you.
I started to wonder why more local businesses weren't doing this, and the answer was obvious once I lived it. It's hard. Which neighborhoods do you pick? How many homes are actually there? How do you design something people keep instead of toss? How do you cover thousands of doors without burning your weekends? I'd figured it out by trial and error, one blistered heel at a time. Most business owners never get past the guesswork.
So I built Porch Pilot.
Porch Pilot takes what worked for my grocery service and turns it into a system any local business can use: mapping the right neighborhoods, counting the doors that matter, designing offers people respond to, and getting them delivered, door by door, street by street. No algorithms deciding who sees you. No bidding wars for keywords. Just your offer, in the hands of the people most likely to become your best customers: the ones who live nearby.
The big platforms want local businesses to believe that reaching customers requires renting attention from a global machine. My grocery service proved otherwise. The most powerful marketing channel in your town isn't on a screen. It's hanging on a doorknob, waiting to be found by someone walking into their own home.
Neighborhoods are full of people looking for what businesses offer; Porch Pilot is designed to make that introduction.