Neighborhood Cab service in the works

A new cab service is currently in development to make the Princeton community a safer place.

Neighbors on the Rum’s owner Joe Holtz has been working behind the scenes for the last year to get his cab service, Neighborhood Cab, up and running for 2024.

“We’re starting up a cab company to improve customer safety, customer retention, and community safety. We want people to get home safe, so they can come back tomorrow. There’s not really a cab service here or Ubers here, so we decided to start something up,” Holtz said. “I’ve had it going in the works for a year, and it’s just been hard to get it up and going.”

According to Holtz, safety is his No. 1 priority for both the customers of his bar and for the community as a whole, and he hopes the cab service will help to make the community safer.

Holtz also hopes that by offering the cab service, it will take some of the pressure off of the local police department, since they will no longer need to drive home individuals who are not safe to drive after a night of drinks.

“I’m passionate about it. It takes pressure off of the local police, off the employees, and it improves community safety. It’s a win-win for everybody,” Holtz said.

Holtz plans to start the service off with three vehicles and six drivers. He currently has the vehicles ready to go with two Chevrolet Bolt cars and one van.

“I bought a couple Chevy Bolts, so a couple of our vehicles will be electric. It doesn’t work for everybody, but I think it will work for us by going green a little bit,” Holtz said. “We also have one van for now.”

The biggest issue Holtz is facing now is finding drivers. He currently has one driver ready to go, but has been struggling to fill the other positions.

“Ideally, my vision is to expand it, hopefully down to our Albertville store, but employees will be the key factor. We’re struggling to find drivers,” Holtz said.

Once Holtz is able to find enough drivers, he plans to start the service as a night-only cab for the bar, and slowly expand to the wider community as he works out the kinks and it becomes more popular.

“I’m excited about it. It’s going to start out as a night thing at first, but eventually I want to be a full blown cab service. Whatever service we can provide, we will provide,” Holtz said. “It’s going to be a community wide thing. I always say it’s a walk, trot, run. Let’s get it up and running, but we gotta do it in bits and pieces. I will focus on the Princeton area for now, maybe with a 10-mile radius.”

Holtz did a small test run during the Princeton Rum River Festival the week of June 6-9 where he provided a few cars and drivers to help drive people around town, and he hopes to be fully up and running within a month depending on his ability to find drivers.

“I had cars here for the festival on a donation basis because we’re not fully up and running yet. Within a month (we hope to have it up and running) with drivers dependent,” Holtz said.

When the Neighborhood Cab first gets started, Holtz plans to charge $4 or $5 as the minimum for a ride and change per mile after that. He is also thinking of doing an incentive and offering coupons to those that use the service multiple times in one day, but all of those details are still being developed.

“I might do an incentive with it, so if you get picked up and dropped off on the same day; I might do a coupon or something,” Holtz said.

Once it’s up and running, anyone in need of a ride can contact Neighbors on the Rum and they will be put in touch with an available driver to come pick them up.

However, those details are also still in the works, and the service will eventually have its own website and phone number.

Until then, contact Neighbors on the Rum for ride inquiries or to inquire about becoming a driver.

Once Holtz has all of the drivers ready to go, he plans to bring the service to the city with proof of insurance on the cars to acquire the necessary permits to run the service.

“The city knows about it, and they’re on board. We’re just waiting on the final check marks,” Holtz said.

For more information, visit https://neighborsbarandgrill.com/on-the-rum/.

Reach Chloe Smith at chloe.smith@apgecm.com