Torrance isn’t exactly an out of the way stop on the road to nowhere. Or is it?

Fine-dining restaurant 1321 Downtown Taproom Bistro had a tough time getting artisan food vendors to deliver to the South Bay city, even though it’s a mere 30-minute drive from such restaurant hubs as downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

The proprietors of 1321, which opened last week in Torrance’s Old Town district, said certain vendors for their standard fare of steak and wine, and specialty ethnic dishes wouldn’t deliver to the eatery because they didn’t have any other clients in the area.

“Within a 5-square-mile radius, they have no other clients, no other restaurants,” said Max Schlutz, chief executive at Mod Group, the development company behind 1321. “It doesn’t make financial sense for them to reroute for us.”

The restaurant is Mod’s first venture, and the delivery challenge took Schlutz by surprise. An experienced hospitality manager, he teamed up with Steve Torres to start Mod, which stands for “manage, operate, develop.” Torres approached Schlutz with the idea of opening higher-end restaurants in underserved communities such as Torrance.

Schlutz said 1321’s food is made from scratch, so it requires special ingredients, including artisan ice cream, bread, or grass-fed beef.

“We were trying to pick out specific ingredients and that’s where we were struggling,” he said.

He cold-called wholesalers and knocked on the doors of nearby restaurants for recommendations. He eventually found vendors for 1321’s braised oxtail enchiladas and truffled goat-cheese flatbread.

But he said there’s still the challenge of delivery times – 1321 has to coordinate its schedule with restaurants in nearby cities, for example, and doesn’t get its items until the late afternoon.

A restaurant consultant said he often arranges supply deliveries to offbeat locations, so he was surprised to hear of Mod’s difficulties.

“It might be a timing thing,” said Jerry Prendergast, of Culver City restaurant consultancy Prendergast & Associates. “They may not be able to get deliveries at exactly the time they want. But I don’t really have a problem getting deliveries almost anywhere.”

Mod is planning to open a second restaurant around the corner to help lure some of the vendors to the area.

“It makes more sense operationally to build up our management company to stay close to Torrance and develop a couple of our concepts here,” Schlutz said.