Sending comforting soup to an ailing relative, a congratulatory cake to a friend or indulging in nostalgic treats from your hometown is much easier thanks to online food-delivery fulfillment platforms that some Lexington-area food purveyors are using as an additional revenue stream.
Billed as an e-commerce site “to bring people comfort through food,” Goldbelly was founded by entrepreneur Joe Ariel in 2012 to give chefs and restaurants the tools to grow their customer bases through mail ordering iconic, regionally rooted food items.
Goldbelly CEO Joe Ariel (left) and Goldbelly Studios head Art Edward.
Citing the privately held company’s growth in the wake of COVID-19’s restaurant industry challenges, a 2020 Bloomberg article described Goldbelly as “saving small businesses one mail-order cheesesteak at a time.”
As its popularity has spread, Lexington has developed a small but enthusiastic presence on Goldbelly, with Cafe Patachou, Crank & Boom and chef Ouita Michel’s restaurant group, Holly Hill & Co., among the participants.
Crank & Boom co-owner Toa Green joined Goldbelly in fall 2019 and said the site was a “lifesaver” during the pandemic, allowing the company to ship nationwide and remain viable, and has remained “a steady arm of the business” ever since.
“I applied to become a vendor for years before we finally got accepted on the platform,” she said. “It was a leap of faith to try it out. I’m really glad that we did.”
She said there was a lot of initial groundwork required to refine products and processes, but once those details were ironed out, operations settled into a relatively smooth rhythm.
Crank & Boom ships its ice cream with dry ice in special Styrofoam coolers using two-day shipping, enabling the product to be transported at minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit so it arrives frozen — most of the time.
“It is always a challenge when you have a very meltable product that needs to stay frozen,” Green said. “Once it leaves our door, the delivery process is out of our control. You can pack it perfectly and somewhere along the way, it can get stuck, and then melted ice cream shows up at the customer’s door. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s part of the shipping world.”
Green said most orders come from across the Southeast, though Crank & Boom’s ice cream has shipped to all 50 states and even Canada.
Toa Green
Crank & Boom’s most popular offering is its “Create Your Own Collection” box, Green said, which allows customers to choose six pints of ice cream to be shipped directly to them. For the undecided, a “Best Sellers Collection” sends proven customer favorites.
Green said Goldbelly’s customer service team has been a strong partner in helping the company reach a national audience, contributing to Crank & Boom becoming one of the highest-rated ice cream brands on the site and leading to features in national outlets including Southern Living, Food & Wine and The New York Times.
Goldbelly handles all customer service issues, offers strong brand recognition and an adept marketing team, and provides bulk shipping rates that are cheaper than Crank & Boom could secure on its own, Green said.
"For those who can’t be in Lexington to have our product in person, we’re so glad that we can send them ice cream to enjoy from afar.”
Still, there are challenges. Green cited limited control over final consumer pricing, occasional delays when updates need to be made on the vendor site, and increased competition as more companies have joined the marketplace since 2019. Shipping ice cream cross-country is also costly, with expenses tied to materials, dry ice and packaging.
“But for those who can’t be in Lexington to have our product in person, we’re so glad that we can send them ice cream to enjoy from afar,” she said.
Holly Hill & Co. also offers a variety of items through Goldbelly, including a Bluegrass Scone & Biscuit Gift Box, a Cookie Sampler Gift Box, Wallace Station bourbon mustard and more, enabling fans of chef Ouita Michel to enjoy her food and merchandise from a distance.
With nine locations in two states, Indianapolis-based Cafe Patachou is a newcomer to the Lexington dining scene — and to Goldbelly — said brand manager Ryu Teramoto.
Teramoto said company officials were pleasantly surprised, and “thrilled,” by the number of orders coming in after Cafe Patachou joined Goldbelly in November 2025.
“We underestimated the demand, so we actually had to ramp up our production capabilities very quickly,” he said, adding that the company purchased a new freezer and made a new hire to manage demand at the Indianapolis production kitchen that fulfills both Goldbelly orders and restaurant prep.
Goldbelly assigns each vendor a representative who works closely with restaurant partners, Teramoto said, holding detailed conversations about product offerings, ideas for growth and how those ideas might be prioritized and implemented.
That representative also assisted with packaging vendors, test shipping and pricing options. Inclusion on Goldbelly-curated “holiday favorites” and “CEO’s favorites” lists pushed orders well beyond expectations, Teramoto said.
All told, Teramoto said he would recommend the experience to other restaurateurs, as it allowed Cafe Patachou to open a new revenue stream while building brand awareness nationwide.
“Joining Goldbelly gives you credibility in new markets, because people trust Goldbelly to promote what we’d consider the highest-quality purveyors and restaurants in the country,” he said. “That’s how we felt when we were invited to join.”