I was super impressed by Zappos when they delivered two pairs of shoes to me in less than 24hrs last week, but a small sandwich shop from Greencastle, Indiana just topped them. If you’ve heard of Greencastle or DePauw University, you’ve probably also heard of Marvin’s and their GCB’s. For those of you are clueless, it’s a small sandwich shop that students like my little brother love.

He was visiting the other weekend down at IU and decided he wanted one of Marvin’s GCB’s (Garlic Cheeseburger) so he called them up for a delivery to Bloomington. The guy taking orders thought he was kidding too until my brother pulled out, “I thought you guys delivered anywhere?” I guess that’s Marvin’s motto and they will ship you sandwiches around the world.

An hour or so passed and my brother, still hungry, called back to check on his order. The new receptionist told him that they were packaged and would be shipped out tomorrow. My brother wanted something to eat that night so he convinced the people to cancel the order and promised to order some GCB’s when he got back to DePauw. We all assumed the order was cancelled and his credit card wasn’t going to be charged- until today.

A package addressed to Jackson showed up today and sure enough it had three vacuumed sealed sandwiches inside along with directions on how to cook them! I called my brother to make sure he didn’t get charged unknowingly. Since he’s notorious for not answering the phone, I had to track him down on Facebook Chat to get the details. He checked his credit card statement and there wasn’t any charge!

What I hope: Marvin’s shipped him the sandwiches for free to prove the point they will deliver anywhere.

What probably happened: The sandwiches were already in the stack to ship out and they forgot he cancelled the order or didn’t have any way to check if the person paid. (Don’t try to scam this small business because of their lax shipping practices!)

I’m going to stick with the hope they were out to stand by their brand’s guarantee. It’s just more awesome that way. Every once in awhile you hear about big players doing something awesome (ie Steve Jobs personally shipping Final Cut to a HS Student), but never about small businesses in small town America doing the same thing.

I’m going to write them a letter offering to build and host a website for them regardless of their reason for shipping those sandwiches. It’s the least I can do. Go Marvin’s!