Food delivery has come to South Whidbey.

At least, it’s available at a selection of the busier restaurants from Freeland to Clinton, thanks to third-party delivery service D-UP (Delivery-Up) and creators Ian and Kayla Armijo.

The husband-and-wife duo, Freeland residents who split time now between Whidbey and Mill Creek, saw a need on South Whidbey for a gofer service, a way to get people the things they wanted in a convenient manner.

“It serves the area well,” Ian Armijo said.

They launched D-Up in January and started with a few restaurants that officially used them. Now, they have a handful of eateries and a grocery store they work with — not for — with plans to expand to Oak Harbor and the Mill Creek area. For the past five months, people from Possession Point to Smugglers Cove got their favorite food fix from Cozy’s Roadhouse in Clinton to China City in Freeland delivered to their doorstep with little more than a phone call and a half-hour wait.

“It works out great,” said Angela Vosburg, who owns the China City restaurants with husband Jack Ng. “We absolutely love it. We’re really excited that they came up with this service on the island.”

“I think it’s really needed,” she added.

Delivery on South Whidbey is largely, if not entirely, non-existent. Some places have tried it with a limited range, but even that tapers eventually. Part of the problem is the low population density of an estimated 12,000 residents across 60 square miles, most of which consists of winding country roads far from restaurants.

The cost of a delivery employee plus insurance, in some cases, wasn’t justified at a place even as large and popular as China City.

“For us to fully staff someone, it’s hard,” Vosburg said. “Everyone’s so spread out.”

Services akin to D-Up have existed for years in metropolitan areas. Smartphone apps like GrubHub and Postmates, essentially gofer services, let users order food through the application and have it brought to them without ever walking out of their door.

Having a second-party vendor to grab grub and take it to customers has worked well for places like China City, El Corral, Cozy’s and Pickles Deli.

It did not work out as well at Basil Cafe in Bayview or Village Pizzeria in Langley. Pizzeria owner Paul Sarkis said they stopped offering D-Up delivery this past weekend. Ian Armijo said it was an issue of not being able to keep up with the pizzeria’s turnaround time. But the idea of a delivery service was still a good one in Sarkis’ opinion.

“It’s certainly set up right,” Sarkis said. “It doesn’t cost me anything.”

That’s coming from both a restaurateur and a D-Upper.

“Personally I’ve used it three or four times,” Sarkis said. “When I get a hankering for Chinese food on a Friday evening, it works.”

Pizza, a popular delivery option, has been a sit down or take-out affair at Sarkis’ shop because it did not make sense financially to offer delivery.

“Delivery is always a little bit complicated,” Sarkis said. “It’s simple but it’s not easy.”

Food orders aren’t the only offering. D-Up will also get your groceries — currently only from the Clinton Foodmart.

The way D-Up works depends on where and what someone wants. At the listed restaurants — Joe’s Wood Fired Pizza, Cozy’s, Pickles, the Braeburn, and China City — if someone calls and asks for delivery, they call D-Up and run it through there, where the cost of $5 for the first five miles and $1-per-mile cost after that is added on to the bill by D-Up. Debit and credit cards can be used, too, because D-Up drivers use a card reader device attached to a smartphone.

Armijo admitted that paying an additional cost for delivery is a “novelty” and a convenience. But he also noted that people whose mobility is impaired are able to get their food cravings sated without leaving their home. Plus, once the weather turns, he expects more people to use their service rather than expose themselves to the winter cold.

One driver, Sam Nelson, said he supplements his income with the deliveries a few days each week. Mostly, it’s a way to learn his new home island and to earn some cash so he can go to concerts.

“Everybody has a smile when you bring them food,” he said.

Concerns about seeing diminished dollars were unfounded for Vosburg. She said the restaurants in Oak Harbor, Freeland and Mill Creek see no difference between sit-down and take-out check values.

The hours are somewhat limited at the moment for D-Up. Five drivers working part-time, maybe a couple of days per week, handle South Whidbey. Armijo said he and wife Kayla hope to expand to Oak Harbor and other South End restaurants soon.

“Let us know where you’re at, and we’ll get it to you,” Armijo said.