If you use GrubHub, UberEATS, etc, you are a bad person

[Joe]

Change my mind.

[Chris-]

I only use DoorDash or GrubHub when the restaurant in question doesn't have its own online ordering. I think that is fair.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I never have food delivered.

[Keyser_Soze]

I used postmates once when I didn't have a car.

[TheLeon]

I can never justify having food delivered, either via app or directly. I'll just go and pick it up. I prefer to order my pick up order via an app just because it's almost always easier, but I'll call if I have to. 

[Joe]

7 minutes ago, Chris- said:

I only use DoorDash or GrubHub when the restaurant in question doesn't have its own online ordering. I think that is fair.

 

If they don't deliver on their own, yes.

[LazyPiranha]

I only use these services when I get a promotional discount, and I always do pickup anyway.  Free food on venture capitalist money.  Thanks for the hibachi assholes!

[Jason]

There's one place by me that's exclusively DoorDash for some reason. 

[Joe]

11 minutes ago, Jason said:

There's one place by me that's exclusively DoorDash for some reason. 

 

How close to you are they?

[Jason]

Just now, Joe said:

How close to you are they?

 

Walking distance but they also make you go through DoorDash to do a pickup order.

[Joe]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Walking distance but they also make you go through DoorDash to do a pickup order.

 

Oh like you can't even call them without it? That's dotarded. DD is probably charging them 25% at a minimum.

[Dodger]

Why does it make you a bad person? I don’t have any desire to do pickups during pandemic times.

[ThreePi]

I think a lot of restaurants use these services on the back end even when you order delivery through their own app. Pretty sure Chipotle (at least in my area) find's drivers through DoorDash.

 

I like to avoid it if I can just because a lot of places markup their prices on these services, so even if I get DashPass free through my credit card I'm often not saving much compared to ordering directly through the restaurant's app instead.

[Joe]

2 minutes ago, Dodger said:

Why does it make you a bad person? I don’t have any desire to do pickups during pandemic times.

 

Because they charge the restaurant predatory service fees. Up to 30% of the price of the order.

[Jason]

Apparently ChowNow is okay, but of course the restaurant has to choose to use them. I think ChowNow is a flat fee per month instead of a huge percentage of every order. Not sure if they provide drivers though.

[Joe]

Just now, Jason said:

Apparently ChowNow is okay, but of course the restaurant has to choose to use them. I think ChowNow is a flat fee per month instead of a huge percentage of every order. Not sure if they provide drivers though.

 

Yes! The sushi restaurant I worked at used ChowNow. I had never heard of it previously, but I hear about it now all the time. I don't think they provide drivers.

[Jason]

1 minute ago, Joe said:

Yes! The sushi restaurant I worked at used ChowNow. I had never heard of it previously, but I hear about it now all the time. I don't think they provide drivers.

 

I mean that's the rub though. A flat monthly fee is way more feasible if you're basically just an IT outsourcing shop for the online ordering platform and not in the business of also providing drivers.

 

Now the REALLY scummy shit is all the bullshit with fake phone numbers, putting restaurants on the platform without the restaurant's permission, etc.

[Joe]

5 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I mean that's the rub though. A flat monthly fee is way more feasible if you're basically just an IT outsourcing shop for the online ordering platform and not in the business of also providing drivers.

 

Now the REALLY scummy shit is all the bullshit with fake phone numbers, putting restaurants on the platform without the restaurant's permission, etc.

 

That should be a crime. Their regular shit is just simply predatory.

[Ominous]

I had never used it until May or so of this year.  Now I use it once a week since I've been working from home since March and suburban restaurants think that the only place that should do delivery is Pizza and Jimmy Johns. 

[Jason]

58 minutes ago, Joe said:

Oh like you can't even call them without it? That's dotarded. DD is probably charging them 25% at a minimum.

 

Yeah last time I looked they literally don't list a phone number on their website as far as I could tell. I guess they just really don't want to deal with picking up the phone? Before COVID the place would get packed to the point where you can barely move so I guess they may have determined that it's normally not worth their time to have staff disrupted with taking calls.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I've never used those services myself. I have joined in on some group orders at few here and there. Sometimes you dot have much choice, working at a hospital. 

[Fizzzzle]

2 hours ago, Joe said:

 

Because they charge the restaurant predatory service fees. Up to 30% of the price of the order.

A lot of restaurants choose to do it anyway, and like Andrea said, a lot of times they pass the cost onto the consumer, so buy at your own risk, because there's also the service fee and the delivery fee, plus any taxes.

 

 Think of it like a game developer choosing to list their game on Steam. Sure, they won't get as much money as if you bought it directly from them, but it's either 70% of something or 100% of nothing.

 

I say order from somewhere if you can, but I don't think people who use postmates and doordash are evil. Restaurants choose to be on those platforms.

[Jason]

Just now, Fizzzzle said:

Restaurants choose to be on those platforms.

 

Except sometimes they didn't actually choose to be on there, and sometimes they feel like they have to in order to avoid losing out. 

[Fizzzzle]

Just now, Jason said:

 

Except sometimes they didn't actually choose to be on there, and sometimes they feel like they have to in order to avoid losing out. 

If they don't choose to be on there, they don't have to pay a fee. Back before we had a tablet for postmates orders, we were listed on postmates without asking to be, but 100% of the cost was passed onto the consumer. The driver would pay for the order on a postmates credit card, we didn't have anything to do with postmates directly.

 

As for not losing out, it is what it is, especially in quarantine-land when everyone is getting takeout. You want as many options as you can get.

[Spork3245]

I’ve never used those services, I only order from places that already have/had delivery set-up. I do use Slice, which is very different comparatively: Slice was made by pizza shop owners who were getting screwed by those other services and is mostly a cheap way for Italian/pizza restaurants to have an online/app-based order system.

[Keyser_Soze]

You can get Little Caesars on Doordash now.

[Remarkableriots]

10 hours ago, TheLeon said:

I can never justify having food delivered, either via app or directly. I'll just go and pick it up. I prefer to order my pick up order via an app just because it's almost always easier, but I'll call if I have to. 

If i went to pick up my order from Char-B-Que it would take over an hour each way taking the bus. By the time i got home the food would be cold.

[Brian]

We are all bad people due to Capitalism. You ain’t better than me bud. 

[Jason]

6 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

We are all bad people due to Capitalism. You ain’t better than me bud. 

 

He's not your bud, guy. 

[Joe]

Why Uber Eats Will Eat You Into Bankruptcy

WWW.FORBES.COM

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Why Uber Eats Will Eat You Into Bankruptcy

 

 

Quote

Uber Eats charges a restaurant 30% of their listed prices for the privilege of delivering their food. For example, Bob’s Deli charges $10 for a burger. Uber Eats would take $3 dollars as a fee for delivering their food. Also, Uber Eats does not permit restaurants to increase their prices to “cover” Uber’s cost. Thus, Uber is telling restaurants that they must eat the cost and lose money or we won’t deliver for you.

The problem here is that the average profit margin for a restaurant is under 30%. Fast food such as McDonalds reported profit margins about 22% in 2017. Casual dining or family style restaurants have a profit margin between 5% to 10%. Lastly, full-service restaurants such as fine-dining have average profit margins of about 6.1%.

Based on the average profit margins above, every restaurant that engages Uber Eats will lose money on every order they take. The more orders coming from Uber Eats, the more money a restaurant would

 

[Joe]

Based Jersey City:

 

Jersey City Caps Fees That Delivery Apps Charge Restaurant Owners

WWW.NBCNEWYORK.COM

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The mayor of Jersey City on Thursday signed an executive order mandating delivery apps like Uber Eats and GrubHub to lower service fees for restaurant owners to 10%. The new order going into effect Friday is intended to protect many small restaurant owners who have lost as much as 80% of their business due to the coronavirus shutdown. With most…

 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, Rachel said:

That’s great for both restaurants and consumers

 

Until they put it on the ballot and the delivery companies twist the issue enough for them to reverse the EO.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 hours ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

We are all bad people due to Capitalism. You ain’t better than me bud. 

No ethical consumption under capitalism!

 

I miss the days when you could just call in an order where the person answering the phone gets the name and order wrong, and the person calling doesn't know what's on the menu. Simpler times.

[Fizzzzle]

The last time we talked about this, I said that I personally don't see anything wrong with using these services. If you want to be a lazy piece of shit and get delivery from a place that does not deliver themselves and are willing to pay $18 for Taco Bell at 2am, go for it. The restaurant may barely be making a profit, but it's revenue they would otherwise not have had.

 

HOWEVER, an exception to my philosophy has formed over the last week or so. During the holidays, for some reason, about 75% of the app orders I've encountered while at work (we have DoorDash, postmates, and Uber Eats) have been people who order their stuff on the app, then come to pick it up themselves.

 

WHY DO THIS? I'm not sure about Postmates, but I know Door Dash takes a 10% cut of the restaurant's sales, plus the customer has to pay a fee of like $3 or something, plus the city has a tax of like $2. So the customer is paying $5 and the restaurant is paying, probably on average, $3 per transaction. Door Dash is getting $6 for nothing.

It reminds me, we used to have this lady who would call the restaurant, ask what our soup was, say "thank you, bye," AND THEN ORDER FROM DOOR DASH AND PICK IT UP HERSELF. Like, you were already on the phone! You already did the hard part! That shit would drive me crazy. Up until this last week, though, it was pretty rare for people to do that. I think the holidays has led to a lack of delivery drivers or something.

[Brian]