Cater2.me Is Expanding to Manhattan A San Francisco catering middleman has branched out to Manhattan, hoping to satisfy the insatiable hunger of those who toil in cubicles for new and interesting local food. For a year and a half, Cater2.me has supplied some 200 tech businesses, finance companies and start-ups with meals, delivering haute food from 120 San Francisco vendors. They are small restaurants, pop-up cafes, artisanal producers, food carts, trucks and not a few restaurant sous chefs who are tending catering businesses on the side. According to Zach Yungst, the company's co-founder, Cater2.me has delivered 800,000 meals in the Bay Area so far. Its clients have included Apple, Adobe, Dropbox, Ngmoco and Posterous. Meanwhile, his partner, Alex Lorton, 28, has been haunting New York institutions like the Brooklyn Flea, New Amsterdam Market, Hester Street Fair and Smorgasburg to sign up vendors. Manhattan deliveries began Monday, with offerings that include B.L.T."s from Landhaus, Indian sandwiches from the Bombay Sandwich Company, Mexican sandwiches from Cemita's in Williamsburg and huaraches from the Country Boys food truck The service "benefits clients because they get a variety of local high-quality artisanal food they normally wouldn't be exposed to," Mr. Yungst said. And it benefits the vendors because they get access to new customers and have a higher visibility to grow their businesses. Rather than responding to spur-of-the moment orders from individual office workers, the Cater2.me business model is based on "recurring longer-term catering events," Mr. Yungst said, like team meetings, seminars, collaborative lunches and other regular group meals. Cater2.me charges the vendors a commission of 10 to 20 percent, depending on the size of the order. The vendors handle delivery, but Cater2.me uses proprietary software to keep track of orders, to give arrival notifications and to note dietary restrictions and preferences from previous food orders. Clients in San Francisco pay $9 to $22 per person; Mr. Yungst estimates that the average cost in Manhattan will be $13 to $25 per person.