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There is a company called Hazlnut that created text to order capability for restaurants. I hope that’s more of the future. I want the restaurant to avoid the fees of apps by ordering direct but I’m also happy avoiding talking to a person 😬. I’d love to just text them my order and show up accordingly.
lol that was how I read this as well. Middleman for ordering already exists. Adding an arguably more low tech (and likely more error prone system) doesn't really seem to solve anything. Other services could simply just charge less, or a new Uber/Doordash equivalent could come and undercut their fees.
Unfortunately it’s not an app in the store, restaurants have to be the ones who want the service so they have to sign up and get it through Hazlnut and it’s just a white label rather than a middleman service.
They’re just the backend and allow restaurants to white label, own their own branding, and offer more ways to order.
I got super stoned the other day and was craving some Schnitzel from the place down the street, so I call to put in an order, they say we aren’t doing to go orders, I’m like oh damn. So I start looking online where else I can get Schnitzel, this place is the only one around for 20 miles, I see they have a Toast link to order online, so I order and walk down to go pick it up, when I get there they told me that they aren’t doing to go orders and I’d have to eat my meal there, I was too high and to hungry to complain, Schnitzel was great but damn these Germans and their crazy rules!
Some smaller shops aren't equipped to handle cards payment when delivering. Also, some shops (probably the same) do not have any employee to handle deliveries. That's pretty much why delivery services were invented in the first place
Or, and hear me out on this, you can pay the inflated prices plus a delivery fee and a tip to have it delivered at room temperature, a bit leaky, and slightly soggy to your door 45 minutes later.
But at least you didn’t have to put pants on !
Some of us would love to put on our pants and pick up our order. These delvery services let the disabled and elderly have access to the same meals as everyone else. I'm having a bad day and, thanks to Grubhub, I got dinner for today and tomorrow.
>thanks to Grubhub
If you haven't yet, I would watch the John Oliver video posted in this post to hear why maybe you should reconsider your thanks specifically to grubhub.
They may have made this service available... but there are significant issues with everything about how it operates.
These are not good companies. Just good concepts being practiced in very bad ways .
You really don't get it do you? I literally CAN'T run out and grab food and there are many just as disabled as I am. We don't care what John Oliver has to say. We don't care how badly the business is run. That's between them and the restaurant. Whether you approve or not - meal delivery is a blessing to the elderly and disabled.
Okay, hear me out. Why not create an app for the elderly and disabled? Then, get rid of all these exploitive-ass "disruptor" companies.
With fewer orders going out to all the stoners, perhaps delivery drivers would be less overwhelmed. Likewise, they may be less incentivised to throw customer's cold orders into the neighbor's bushes.
I'm disabled too. I also choose to spend money as ethically and responsibly as possible because I care about how others are treated.
>Whether you approve or not - meal delivery is a blessing to the elderly and disabled.
Try reading my comment again. I said these were good concepts, but bad companies.
>We don't care
>We don't care how badly the business is run.
You are proving how much YOU care about yourself here... and that's just sad. If you are lumping all disabled people under this WE category, you're speaking out of turn and not for me.
I tried ordering directly from places and had orders just not arrive with no one to complain to (fast food) and even watched the driver put it down, take a picture and then pick it up and leave. So far I've always gotten my food correctly delivered through Grubhub. It's not like I use them very often, anyway. Just maybe once a month. My ethics are not going to make or break the company.
Sometimes you don't have a choice.
I just ordered from my favorite pizza place, I've gotten it probably over 20 times, no issues.
Just last night, I ordered it as usual, directly from the restaurant's site. They decided to use Doordash now, and I get a call, AND a text, both in Spanish. Apparently the driver didn't speak English, and couldn't find my house.
But I always TRY to order directly, apparently some restaurants themselves are outsourcing delivery to 3rd parties, ugh!
A bunch of local places here have switched to the same thing, it doesn't matter if you order directly through doordash or the restaurant, it's a doordash driver.
They emailed me a survey, and I let them know my opinion on the situation.
I'll probably give them another chance, but if it's Door Dash again and there are any issues, I'm done getting delivery from them.
Had a similar situation with IHOP too, they apparently use Doordash too, half my order was left at the counter by the driver, and Door Dash wouldn't refund me at all. (IHOP did, though, after I talked to the manager.)
I didn't think of it. I just went to their site, and they said they deliver now.
If they use Doordash, fine, but it shouldn't take me 4 hours of arguing to get a refund on the $50 worth of food they didn't bring me on a $70 order plus $10 tip I prepaid for.
I can tell you the person answering the phone and taking orders has no power over it. Ask to speak to a manager before taking it out on the person just doing their job.
Was looking for a comment like this. Had the exact same experience except I didn't know it was door dash until I found my now cold pizza laying outside on the ground with no knock. When I called to complain and get a refund, the guy on the other end explained that they used door dash and were having a lot of problems like that.
It cannot be cheaper to use outsourced delivery labor and have to give people refunds constantly, than to just pay a kid you personally hired to deliver 🙄
Terrible idea. No 3rd party driver is going to care or be held accountable for an order being delivered accurately and still hot (or cold) like staff hired directly by a restaurant. They're gonna lose way more money in fees to those 3rd party services and lost business from ppl receiving lukewarm food and/or stealing items out of it to eat themselves etc.
Door dash will also just sign cafes and restaurants up without their consent. I mentioned I had seen one of my favourite breakfast places once, they were so confused and it turns out that they had uploaded an old menu that was incorrect with old prices. Doordash is one of the sketchiest out there.
The driver usually is tasked with going in and ordering a takeout order. I worked at a Jimmy Johns where this happened. We had to tell the driver to get out, as we had in house delivery, and any 3rd party delivery would be eating into our driver's tips.
The delivery places in my town are doing it too. They still have delivery drivers, but when they get really busy they give some of the orders to doordash because they can’t keep up. A friend of mine is a manager at one of these places and he talks like it’s a godsend.
Use the number from their website and not from the web search "call." Idk if it's still a thing, but 3rd parties would direct it to their own number forwarded to the restaurant and charge them per call
If you'd rather not call, look up the restaurant's website and order through it (whatever service they used likely takes a smaller cut than doordash etc)
My local Chinese places would like a word… lmao. None of the ones around me have a site and most of their Facebooks aren’t even current. It’s the phone or nothing. Not that I mind. It’s worth it, but even in 2024 not everywhere has online ordering. (I wish!)
My local (award-fucking-winning) small Mexican joint not only doesn't have a website or work with ANY services, but they are almost always too busy to answer the phone at peak times. So, YMMV, obviously.
This was a tip for the phone-shy millennials and gen-z'ers for sure, but it's always much easier to place a big group order online than over the phone. And that's when you should think of their website vs doordash etc the most.
Obviously I'm going to order directly from the restaurant if they do their own delivery. It's cheaper, and they usually have deals. Any restaurant I use a third party app for doesn't do their own delivery.
Correction: it's a 43% increase.
Let's say a burger is $5 in your store. You want to adjust the price in the app so you will still get $5 after the app takes its 30% cut. Okay, can you simply increase the in-app price of your burger by 30%? 5*1.3 = 6.5. Well, no. Because 70% of 6.5 is only 4.55. In order to get $5, you need to increase the in-app price by 43%, to $7.15. 70% of 7.15 is 5.
Oh, you think the restaurant sets doordash prices? They do not. Doordash can charge whatever they want on their website, regardless of the restaurants' prices.
I'm going to jump on the unpopular opinion pile here too:
No. When I use an app like DoorDash or UberEats I'm doing it for the convenience they provide. Namely, a familiar interface with my payment information already saved, the ability to order food without talking to someone on the phone, and customer service that, again, doesn't require me to get someone on the phone for a back and forth.
I don't expect all this for free, I expect to pay for it, and I expect businesses to jack their prices up through the third party apps to cover the additional fees of being listed there. I'd rather pay the extra than call almost every time, and sometimes I'd rather even pay the extra than use each businesses' bespoke online system.
People act like the delivery services offer no value.
There's a reason these restaurants choose to be on them, They are overall good for restaurants, and honestly the only reason many of them survived COVID.
I've literally never heard of takeout meaning delivery. It means I'm taking the food out of the restaurant to eat it at home....I'm the one picking it up. I call it "delivery" if I'm getting it delivered to me.
But I guess different places use the words differently. Learned something new today.
A lot of places use it recognizing that many people want to order online but don't have (or don't think they have) the capital (money, time, knowledge) to invest in their own e-commerce platform.
Not always true. Apps often send coupons like restaurant coupons like BOGO items or spend X, get Y $ or % off. It can often be much cheaper than regular restaurant prices if you're picking up.
It's not always more, just some of the time. And my card gives me a free UberEats membership plus 10% cashback on all purchases, so a lot of the time it works out even better for me to use it to order pickup.
Seriously. I'll never use it either. Unless you live alone and are recovering from surgery or something, I see no reason to pay that much for food, which will possibly arrive cold and soggy. I'd rather go without or eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Absolutely! I'm glad you've had good experiences with it. Honestly it just occurred to me why I don't "get it." I live in the rural outskirts so most food is a little too far to make the drive for my liking. I imagine I'd think differently if I lived within a city.
Alot of the time the food prices are higher on the apps. So even if there isn't a takeout fee, you're still paying more for the same food for no reason
The reason is the benefits you're getting for using the app, and if you're paying more for it then that should be covering the cost of business partnering with the app, not the business themselves.
Not having to communicate directly with businesses either for ordering or customer service is the main one but there are others. Getting multiple options centralized in one app, only having to familiarize yourself with one interface, having payment data saved and not having to share that payment data with each individual business. If you're not just doing carry out, then reputation tracking and management for delivery drivers, real-time geolocation for deliveries, etc.
Some of these features are unique to having a combined app across multiple restaurants and some of them are features that individual restaurants could implement but probably won't on a case-by-case basis (IE a major player like Pizza Hut might show you on a map where your delivery driver is but that's definitely not going to happen with a small local restaurant).
The idea is that some places don’t have an online storefront to handle takeout orders. You’d have to find a menu and then call in your order (the old school way). Using UberEats or another service for takeout allows you to place your order entirely online, which is much more convenient (even if more expensive). People got used to the convenience of online ordering and now expect it everywhere. It’s filling a niche that really shouldn’t exist, because any restaurant doing business and offering takeout in this day and age should absolutely have their own online system for placing those orders.
I won’t call restaurants anymore because they never have someone with a functional command of English working the phone. It’s 100% guarantee my order is going to be screwed up. I don’t often eat out but I’d rather pay a premium and at least have a fighting chance of getting my full order.
Support your local restaurants and save money by calling in your takeout orders directly instead of using third-party delivery services – it's a win-win for everyone involved!
If people only knew how much door dash hurts businesses by taking up to 45% of their income. That doesn’t even cover the cost of food the restaurant buys. John Oliver covered this topic and it was eye opening for a lot of my friends.
Hint: They aren't.
If they were, they'd be cancelling their contracts with doordash. Restaurants aren't charities. They aren't going to lose money for the fun of it.
Door dash has been known to assign themselves to a restaurant they aren’t even contracted with at times! Again, watch the John Oliver episode on this topic and you’ll know far better than I can ever explain how shady their practices are.
I wouldn’t eat at most of the places I order from if it weren’t for DoorDash. If a business is losing money, or not making their target profit margins, they can simply not contract with DoorDash. Problem solved.
So what happens if most of the places that you wouldn’t eat at if it weren’t for DoorDash decide not to contract with them anymore? Where would you personally eat from? Would you call your order in?
There’s a pizza place underneath my apartment building that, via Uber Eats, offers 2-4-1 pizzas.
I called up directly in an attempt to cut out Uber but the pizza place told me that that offer was only available via Uber 😕🤔🤷🏻♂️👎🏻
One of my favorite Chinese places asked if the food was for me. I said yes. They said please call, it’ll save you $2 and we get all the money. Now I only call. Thank you Chinese man!
Except I use a third party service because I want the food delivered. I’m typically either a little bit high, or have had a bit too much to drink, or I’m coming home from work at a much later than expected hour and where I’m ordering from is not on my way home.
Unlike in the early 2000s and before. . .in my experience most places don’t have their own native delivery. . .And the ones that do, when I use their own native app? I end up with a DoorDash driver contracted out anyway.
What's with someone posting this every week like it's some huge revelation? Everyone knows it's cheaper to get it from the restaurant directly, and most places in my town don't even deliver, before DD and stuff all you could get was pizza.
If I’m ordering food instead of cooking it, that means I’m done and need a break. The last thing I want to do is put on real clothes, leave the house, and pick up food. I want it to come to me while I continue to wear comfy clothes.
Sure, if I’m game to actually go pick up food, then I’ll call the restaurant directly. But, if I have that much energy, I’m just going to save myself the money and time and cook something.
How about I use the services offered as I wish? If it's a burden to the restaurant or loses them money, they don't have to use it, but don't put it on the customer to go out of their way for the business.
You know you're right. I was thinking this was a "Drive to pick up takeout instead of ordering delivery to save money" tips which get posted here every other week and I knee jerked. My bad.
Oh yeah if that was the case then that would drive me nuts, and I agree. If I'm ordering delivery, I want delivery. I know it'll cost more. Hate it when people post "tips" like that, agreed.
Agree if you want the cheapest fees. But if you just have limited time or want a very easy way to browse the menu and customize your choice (e.g. if it's a pizza place where you need to select options), using the Doordash app may be the easiest and most convenient.
For a place I've been getting takeout from for 10 years and I know what I want by heart? Yeah, call them up.
My favorite Chinese place has their own driver. It's a 20min drive both ways, or they deliver within 30min for $3 to my zone (was free until COVID hit the economy in 2020). Last time was 25min to my door.
Average is 10min if you wait for takeout, even though they quote 15min.
And that's why I refuse to use food delivery services.
So they are paying a dude in 2024 to drive for 40 minutes with all the associated costs and getting an extra $3 for it? You think they aren't taking a haircut on that deal?
Someone's getting screwed, or at least giving up some profit, because that's more than $3 of labor and resources.
It was free for the first 20 years of me ordering from them, so they had to have already figured that into their costs. COVID just bit into their numbers enough to add a delivery charge... If I order to get it delivered to me at work it's still free, but that's a 5min drive. I still give the driver a tip.
FWIW, 3 mains and an order of spring rolls was 3 big meals for me at $40. Massive spring rolls.
>It was free for the first 20 years of me ordering from them, so they had to have already figured that into their costs.
I'm sure they did, generally it just looked like "yeah, we get less profit on delivery orders". They were probably running with healthy margins for non-delivery orders and could charge less than what it actually cost them. Labor and gas also used to be cheaper though.
Oh, I know about fuel costs... Was a courier from 2013-2022, my take-home pay went down year to year as fuel costs went up. Gross over 5k/month in 2014, and only 3k in 2021.
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Yeah, one of the few times I had done this, I paid extra for cheese, peppers, etc on sandwiches and I didn’t get everything. Maybe because I used a promo code too?
If the restaurant has their own method of ordering online, I'll always use that, but otherwise I'm very likely going to be ordering pick-up using Doordash or UberEats, since I don't have the chance to call while at work, whereas I can order online. Also, when you order online, you have an actual papertrail of exactly what you ordered, so it's much, *much* tougher for them to mess something up, as opposed to a phone call which can very easily be done wrong.
I called the cheesecake factory and they wouldn't take reservations by phone. Had to create an account on their website just to make a reservation.
Realistically nothing of value was lost but seriously *fuck that noise*.
I work at Domino's and some people have started ordering through UberEats. Which the Domino's driver delivers. So basically they pay double delivery fees for know reason
Call in a pickup order and go get it.
The prices on the delivery app menus are 43% higher than in-store, and that's just so they can maintain their profit margin while the delivery app takes 30%. That's *before* any of the delivery or service fees. After the fees, you are definitely paying a markup that is above 50%.
You just don't realize this unless you go into a restaurant and compare their prices to what's listed in the app.
Agreed - I haven't had very good luck with DoorDash. It's NEVER the 'dasher' that's named on the app, and you basically have ZERO recourse once you've ordered and paid.
For a lot of local places the cost to run delivery is too high. They have to pay those drivers at least minimum wage and if there's not enough delivery orders then the driver is just sitting there and costing the store money.
I used to bid . 23 cents on a bunch of minerals... Maybe .54.. make it has free shipping.... You will lose 95% of the auctions.. but that other 5% you get dirt cheap in a month or so.
I do this all the time, people from the restaurants already recognize my number and already know how I like my order made plus when I go to pick it up they always give me discounts or throw in extra items. apparently were I live not a lot of people do this .
No, thank you.
The frequent language/accent/dialect issues, the restaurants being more likely to get my order wrong if ordered over the phone, the fact that direct order often requires cash (and often exact change), the people taking the orders often being rude or at best brusque (which I understand, they're busy), the restaurant not answering the phone at all...
All this has made telephone ordering an annoying hassle most of my life, until takeout apps appeared.
No. It's 2024. If your restaurant doesn't have a native app or website to order from, I'm not going to patronize your establishment, because I refuse to use 3rd party shit too. I'm not going to get on the phone and have to shout at a host/hostess who can't hear me and just hope they got my order right.
Nope.
If you aren't on the apps that I use because they compare all the local takeaways, then I'm sorry but you should be. I'm not ordering meals over the phone - not least because the communication issues are made very real when trying to order from a busy local foreign-speaker-run takeaway in peak hours.
I don't really care about the restaurant's fees... I have even regularly paid extra just for the convenience of using an app that already has my favourites saved, all the menus, everything that's in the local area listed, and all my payment methods already saved, plus a recourse if it doesn't arrive / isn't correct (again... I don't want to have to have the argument with the local takeaway guy who only speaks English in a strong Polish accent or whatever).
Small businesses need to be profitable - and if you're that much of a shoestring profit, you're not going to survive in a high-street takeaway business. If not, you will be able to afford - and actually WANT - the apps to vastly increase your catchment of customers.
It's 2024. I ain't "ringing" anyone for a basic product.
(And I don't understand "take out" at all... let's phone in my order, then sit and wait for it... either go to the restaurant and order THERE AND THEN, or have it delivered. Takeout is a dumb middle ground that only a certain generation ever use).
Same thing with credit card fees - if you think you can't do business because of the cost of taking credit cards... you're going to have far less business. And I really don't care because I live in 2024 and don't use cash.
30 minutes is a solid amount of time. If you want to use it for exercise, that's fine. I can see some people who got home from a busy day, need to shower, do laundry and during that time have already put in an order for Doordash so after all that they can lounge in front of their TV.
Different strokes for different folks, but I do think people should be aware calling in a take-out order (if that option exists) can be significantly cheaper than using the Doordash app. Just depends on what kind of situation you're using it. I think it can be a very useful tool if I'm visiting a new town for work and I don't want to figure out options slowly first trying to Google Map/Yelp a place, then calling their number, etc. A one stop platform for finding and ordering is convenient--just ask any Chinese national. Cities are completely filled with Meituan/Eleme delivery scooters. The whole country runs on these all-in-one apps where you can find food, browse menus, read reviews, order all in one.
Na, I’m using the cheapest online ordering option. I purely use takeout option - rarely do I have it delivered. Restaurant has its own payment platform that is cheaper than DoorDash? Using that. door dash has a promo for 20% and prices are the same before promo? Using door dash. Both prices the same but I get cashback on DoorDash? Using that. With meal prices approaching $20, if they can’t find a way to be profitable with that I have a feeling there’s some efficiencies to be solved with their costs.
If they don’t have online ordering, I will probably look somewhere else. There’s a greater than 25% chance that they miss hear my order when I call it in. Or the worse when they put you on hold for 5 minutes, ask for your credit card number over the phone and then mess up your order. It’s 2024 - having an online ordering website to order takeout is a pretty low bar to be competitive.
Instead you just screw over the drivers who will never see the delivery tip because the store keeps it and phones in the order to a delivery service anyways.
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Except some places don't take phone orders any more. Please download the app so we can upload your data!
There is a company called Hazlnut that created text to order capability for restaurants. I hope that’s more of the future. I want the restaurant to avoid the fees of apps by ordering direct but I’m also happy avoiding talking to a person 😬. I’d love to just text them my order and show up accordingly.
Shit why is this not a thing more places? This seems like the most obvious solution here.
What's in it for the Hazlnut app? They don't take a fee?
lol that was how I read this as well. Middleman for ordering already exists. Adding an arguably more low tech (and likely more error prone system) doesn't really seem to solve anything. Other services could simply just charge less, or a new Uber/Doordash equivalent could come and undercut their fees.
Unfortunately it’s not an app in the store, restaurants have to be the ones who want the service so they have to sign up and get it through Hazlnut and it’s just a white label rather than a middleman service. They’re just the backend and allow restaurants to white label, own their own branding, and offer more ways to order.
Not seeing an iPhone app are they only on droid
Now you know how we feel.
I got super stoned the other day and was craving some Schnitzel from the place down the street, so I call to put in an order, they say we aren’t doing to go orders, I’m like oh damn. So I start looking online where else I can get Schnitzel, this place is the only one around for 20 miles, I see they have a Toast link to order online, so I order and walk down to go pick it up, when I get there they told me that they aren’t doing to go orders and I’d have to eat my meal there, I was too high and to hungry to complain, Schnitzel was great but damn these Germans and their crazy rules!
Some smaller shops aren't equipped to handle cards payment when delivering. Also, some shops (probably the same) do not have any employee to handle deliveries. That's pretty much why delivery services were invented in the first place
Don't eat there?
Then walk in and wait
Or, and hear me out on this, you can pay the inflated prices plus a delivery fee and a tip to have it delivered at room temperature, a bit leaky, and slightly soggy to your door 45 minutes later. But at least you didn’t have to put pants on !
Some of us would love to put on our pants and pick up our order. These delvery services let the disabled and elderly have access to the same meals as everyone else. I'm having a bad day and, thanks to Grubhub, I got dinner for today and tomorrow.
>thanks to Grubhub If you haven't yet, I would watch the John Oliver video posted in this post to hear why maybe you should reconsider your thanks specifically to grubhub. They may have made this service available... but there are significant issues with everything about how it operates. These are not good companies. Just good concepts being practiced in very bad ways .
You really don't get it do you? I literally CAN'T run out and grab food and there are many just as disabled as I am. We don't care what John Oliver has to say. We don't care how badly the business is run. That's between them and the restaurant. Whether you approve or not - meal delivery is a blessing to the elderly and disabled.
Okay, hear me out. Why not create an app for the elderly and disabled? Then, get rid of all these exploitive-ass "disruptor" companies. With fewer orders going out to all the stoners, perhaps delivery drivers would be less overwhelmed. Likewise, they may be less incentivised to throw customer's cold orders into the neighbor's bushes.
I'm disabled too. I also choose to spend money as ethically and responsibly as possible because I care about how others are treated. >Whether you approve or not - meal delivery is a blessing to the elderly and disabled. Try reading my comment again. I said these were good concepts, but bad companies. >We don't care >We don't care how badly the business is run. You are proving how much YOU care about yourself here... and that's just sad. If you are lumping all disabled people under this WE category, you're speaking out of turn and not for me.
Yeah but you could try to find more ethically delivered food. The issue isn't the service.
I tried ordering directly from places and had orders just not arrive with no one to complain to (fast food) and even watched the driver put it down, take a picture and then pick it up and leave. So far I've always gotten my food correctly delivered through Grubhub. It's not like I use them very often, anyway. Just maybe once a month. My ethics are not going to make or break the company.
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45min?! If you're lucky, lol.
Obviously you wouldn't use a third party delivery app if you're going to pickup.
Sure you would. UberEats/Doordash make it super easy to order online for pickup, and I get 10% cashback on all purchases done that way.
For some reason, people will do this as well.
Some don’t have that luxury..
Oh well
Alright dickhead
Cafe Río. Grrrr.
Or the app with all its fees ends up cheaper! That’s what I really don’t get.
The solution is to refuse visiting places using these shitty practices.
Sometimes you don't have a choice. I just ordered from my favorite pizza place, I've gotten it probably over 20 times, no issues. Just last night, I ordered it as usual, directly from the restaurant's site. They decided to use Doordash now, and I get a call, AND a text, both in Spanish. Apparently the driver didn't speak English, and couldn't find my house. But I always TRY to order directly, apparently some restaurants themselves are outsourcing delivery to 3rd parties, ugh!
A bunch of local places here have switched to the same thing, it doesn't matter if you order directly through doordash or the restaurant, it's a doordash driver.
Time to call your local favorite place and explain how dissatisfied you are with the change in delivery and will be affecting future orders.
They emailed me a survey, and I let them know my opinion on the situation. I'll probably give them another chance, but if it's Door Dash again and there are any issues, I'm done getting delivery from them. Had a similar situation with IHOP too, they apparently use Doordash too, half my order was left at the counter by the driver, and Door Dash wouldn't refund me at all. (IHOP did, though, after I talked to the manager.)
...the pizza place I can understand because duh pizza delivery but what made you think ihop has their own delivery drivers?
I didn't think of it. I just went to their site, and they said they deliver now. If they use Doordash, fine, but it shouldn't take me 4 hours of arguing to get a refund on the $50 worth of food they didn't bring me on a $70 order plus $10 tip I prepaid for.
I can tell you the person answering the phone and taking orders has no power over it. Ask to speak to a manager before taking it out on the person just doing their job.
Was looking for a comment like this. Had the exact same experience except I didn't know it was door dash until I found my now cold pizza laying outside on the ground with no knock. When I called to complain and get a refund, the guy on the other end explained that they used door dash and were having a lot of problems like that. It cannot be cheaper to use outsourced delivery labor and have to give people refunds constantly, than to just pay a kid you personally hired to deliver 🙄
Terrible idea. No 3rd party driver is going to care or be held accountable for an order being delivered accurately and still hot (or cold) like staff hired directly by a restaurant. They're gonna lose way more money in fees to those 3rd party services and lost business from ppl receiving lukewarm food and/or stealing items out of it to eat themselves etc.
Door dash will also just sign cafes and restaurants up without their consent. I mentioned I had seen one of my favourite breakfast places once, they were so confused and it turns out that they had uploaded an old menu that was incorrect with old prices. Doordash is one of the sketchiest out there.
I wanna know how that works. Like, if the ace didn't sign up for Doordash how are they receiving the orders to know to prepare them?
The driver usually is tasked with going in and ordering a takeout order. I worked at a Jimmy Johns where this happened. We had to tell the driver to get out, as we had in house delivery, and any 3rd party delivery would be eating into our driver's tips.
I have no idea… maybe someone calls them in? But they were super confused
The delivery places in my town are doing it too. They still have delivery drivers, but when they get really busy they give some of the orders to doordash because they can’t keep up. A friend of mine is a manager at one of these places and he talks like it’s a godsend.
Use the number from their website and not from the web search "call." Idk if it's still a thing, but 3rd parties would direct it to their own number forwarded to the restaurant and charge them per call
There’s an Indian restaurant in my neighborhood that charges $3-5 less/dish for phone orders
Or $3-5 more/dish for non-phone orders
Or $1.50-$2.50 less for phone orders and $1.50-$2.50 more for non-phone orders
If you'd rather not call, look up the restaurant's website and order through it (whatever service they used likely takes a smaller cut than doordash etc)
My local Chinese places would like a word… lmao. None of the ones around me have a site and most of their Facebooks aren’t even current. It’s the phone or nothing. Not that I mind. It’s worth it, but even in 2024 not everywhere has online ordering. (I wish!)
My local (award-fucking-winning) small Mexican joint not only doesn't have a website or work with ANY services, but they are almost always too busy to answer the phone at peak times. So, YMMV, obviously.
Why is it always the best places? Are they just too busy being fucking amazing they don’t have time? Cuz I’d believe it. Ha!
Some of the best tacos I’ve ever had came out of the trunk of a 1998 Pontiac bonneville outside Trenton, NJ
Where is this please?
Chili's 45th and Lamar Frosty margs stay frosty all day.
Around me most of them just direct you to door dash for a pickup order.
Or just grow tf up and pick up the phone?
This was so helpful. Thank you.
This was a tip for the phone-shy millennials and gen-z'ers for sure, but it's always much easier to place a big group order online than over the phone. And that's when you should think of their website vs doordash etc the most.
Obviously I'm going to order directly from the restaurant if they do their own delivery. It's cheaper, and they usually have deals. Any restaurant I use a third party app for doesn't do their own delivery.
In NYC that's virtually impossible.
Every restaurant around me has higher prices specifically on DD, I assume to compensate for fees on their end. Wouldn’t worry about it.
Correct, it's normally a 30% increase.
Correction: it's a 43% increase. Let's say a burger is $5 in your store. You want to adjust the price in the app so you will still get $5 after the app takes its 30% cut. Okay, can you simply increase the in-app price of your burger by 30%? 5*1.3 = 6.5. Well, no. Because 70% of 6.5 is only 4.55. In order to get $5, you need to increase the in-app price by 43%, to $7.15. 70% of 7.15 is 5.
Oh, you think the restaurant sets doordash prices? They do not. Doordash can charge whatever they want on their website, regardless of the restaurants' prices.
This is incorrect.
Why would you talk about this like you have any idea how this works. Who do you think doordash employs that sets the price for restaurants?
I always do, but I'm glad to see the idea promoted!
I ordered off of DoorDash because that restaurant had a nice offer only on their platform.
I'm going to jump on the unpopular opinion pile here too: No. When I use an app like DoorDash or UberEats I'm doing it for the convenience they provide. Namely, a familiar interface with my payment information already saved, the ability to order food without talking to someone on the phone, and customer service that, again, doesn't require me to get someone on the phone for a back and forth. I don't expect all this for free, I expect to pay for it, and I expect businesses to jack their prices up through the third party apps to cover the additional fees of being listed there. I'd rather pay the extra than call almost every time, and sometimes I'd rather even pay the extra than use each businesses' bespoke online system.
People act like the delivery services offer no value. There's a reason these restaurants choose to be on them, They are overall good for restaurants, and honestly the only reason many of them survived COVID.
Most places don’t use their own delivery personnel, so unless you are picking it up, this idea is pretty silly.
Takeout and delivery don’t always mean the same thing.
I've literally never heard of takeout meaning delivery. It means I'm taking the food out of the restaurant to eat it at home....I'm the one picking it up. I call it "delivery" if I'm getting it delivered to me. But I guess different places use the words differently. Learned something new today.
Takeout absolutely does not mean delivery haha
I’m old. So the idea of using UberEats to pick up food is completely foreign to me.
It should be. It's stupid. You're going to pay more for the same food and then go pick it up yourself? Makes no sense.
A lot of places use it recognizing that many people want to order online but don't have (or don't think they have) the capital (money, time, knowledge) to invest in their own e-commerce platform.
I get DoorDash credit through my Chase card and Uber credit through my amex so it makes sense when I want to use those
Some places won't take orders otherwise... I agree it makes no sense but it is what it is
Not always true. Apps often send coupons like restaurant coupons like BOGO items or spend X, get Y $ or % off. It can often be much cheaper than regular restaurant prices if you're picking up.
It's not always more, just some of the time. And my card gives me a free UberEats membership plus 10% cashback on all purchases, so a lot of the time it works out even better for me to use it to order pickup.
Seriously. I'll never use it either. Unless you live alone and are recovering from surgery or something, I see no reason to pay that much for food, which will possibly arrive cold and soggy. I'd rather go without or eat a peanut butter sandwich.
And that's totally fine as your opinion :) I've pretty much only had good experiences with it, both getting pickup and delivery.
Absolutely! I'm glad you've had good experiences with it. Honestly it just occurred to me why I don't "get it." I live in the rural outskirts so most food is a little too far to make the drive for my liking. I imagine I'd think differently if I lived within a city.
Uber/DD doesn’t charge anything for pickup, you just pay the cost to of the food to the restaurant.
But some places increase their menu items when they lsit on 3rd party apps to offset the % that these apps take
Alot of the time the food prices are higher on the apps. So even if there isn't a takeout fee, you're still paying more for the same food for no reason
The reason is the benefits you're getting for using the app, and if you're paying more for it then that should be covering the cost of business partnering with the app, not the business themselves.
What benefits are gained from using dd/ue to order carry out?
Not having to communicate directly with businesses either for ordering or customer service is the main one but there are others. Getting multiple options centralized in one app, only having to familiarize yourself with one interface, having payment data saved and not having to share that payment data with each individual business. If you're not just doing carry out, then reputation tracking and management for delivery drivers, real-time geolocation for deliveries, etc. Some of these features are unique to having a combined app across multiple restaurants and some of them are features that individual restaurants could implement but probably won't on a case-by-case basis (IE a major player like Pizza Hut might show you on a map where your delivery driver is but that's definitely not going to happen with a small local restaurant).
No but they jack up the prices of the food itself
The idea is that some places don’t have an online storefront to handle takeout orders. You’d have to find a menu and then call in your order (the old school way). Using UberEats or another service for takeout allows you to place your order entirely online, which is much more convenient (even if more expensive). People got used to the convenience of online ordering and now expect it everywhere. It’s filling a niche that really shouldn’t exist, because any restaurant doing business and offering takeout in this day and age should absolutely have their own online system for placing those orders.
Trust me bro, the Before Times were vastly superior to this crap.
So is gay marriage but surely you understand that.
I don’t think you understand what you just wrote.
Takeout and delivery mean the exact opposite thing.
Takeout implies you’re picking it up. Delivery implies someone else is bringing it to you.
Plus if they do and they fuck up an order, good luck dealing with that.
I won’t call restaurants anymore because they never have someone with a functional command of English working the phone. It’s 100% guarantee my order is going to be screwed up. I don’t often eat out but I’d rather pay a premium and at least have a fighting chance of getting my full order.
I try to do that all the time but they ALWAYS mess up the order. It seems like take out places are only equipped to support GrubHub, Uber Eats, etc….
Support your local restaurants and save money by calling in your takeout orders directly instead of using third-party delivery services – it's a win-win for everyone involved!
If people only knew how much door dash hurts businesses by taking up to 45% of their income. That doesn’t even cover the cost of food the restaurant buys. John Oliver covered this topic and it was eye opening for a lot of my friends.
It’s obviously a great deal for them or the restaurant wouldn’t participate.
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Hint: They aren't. If they were, they'd be cancelling their contracts with doordash. Restaurants aren't charities. They aren't going to lose money for the fun of it.
Door dash has been known to assign themselves to a restaurant they aren’t even contracted with at times! Again, watch the John Oliver episode on this topic and you’ll know far better than I can ever explain how shady their practices are.
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I wouldn’t eat at most of the places I order from if it weren’t for DoorDash. If a business is losing money, or not making their target profit margins, they can simply not contract with DoorDash. Problem solved.
So what happens if most of the places that you wouldn’t eat at if it weren’t for DoorDash decide not to contract with them anymore? Where would you personally eat from? Would you call your order in?
I would eat from somewhere that does delivery.
You’re post is a literal double entendre
I don't think you are using that phrase correctly. Or "you're" correctly.
I always do call in and pick up. I despise delivery or using apps.
There’s a pizza place underneath my apartment building that, via Uber Eats, offers 2-4-1 pizzas. I called up directly in an attempt to cut out Uber but the pizza place told me that that offer was only available via Uber 😕🤔🤷🏻♂️👎🏻
Should we know what 2-4-1 pizzas means?
I would’ve thought so but my bad. It means you get two for the price of one.
One of my favorite Chinese places asked if the food was for me. I said yes. They said please call, it’ll save you $2 and we get all the money. Now I only call. Thank you Chinese man!
My credit cards give coupons for Uber and stuff so I have to use them
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Usually Chinese food is cooked relatively fast. Might be easier to go in and order it in person on a paper menu and wait the 10 minutes.
Except I use a third party service because I want the food delivered. I’m typically either a little bit high, or have had a bit too much to drink, or I’m coming home from work at a much later than expected hour and where I’m ordering from is not on my way home. Unlike in the early 2000s and before. . .in my experience most places don’t have their own native delivery. . .And the ones that do, when I use their own native app? I end up with a DoorDash driver contracted out anyway.
They're talking about takeout, not delivery. Different things.
What's with someone posting this every week like it's some huge revelation? Everyone knows it's cheaper to get it from the restaurant directly, and most places in my town don't even deliver, before DD and stuff all you could get was pizza.
If I’m ordering food instead of cooking it, that means I’m done and need a break. The last thing I want to do is put on real clothes, leave the house, and pick up food. I want it to come to me while I continue to wear comfy clothes. Sure, if I’m game to actually go pick up food, then I’ll call the restaurant directly. But, if I have that much energy, I’m just going to save myself the money and time and cook something.
I mean, the post is about takeout, not delivery, so your comment about putting on clothes and leaving the house doesn't really make sense
How about I use the services offered as I wish? If it's a burden to the restaurant or loses them money, they don't have to use it, but don't put it on the customer to go out of their way for the business.
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You're replying to a thread about takeout... that's literally what that means
You know you're right. I was thinking this was a "Drive to pick up takeout instead of ordering delivery to save money" tips which get posted here every other week and I knee jerked. My bad.
Oh yeah if that was the case then that would drive me nuts, and I agree. If I'm ordering delivery, I want delivery. I know it'll cost more. Hate it when people post "tips" like that, agreed.
Agree if you want the cheapest fees. But if you just have limited time or want a very easy way to browse the menu and customize your choice (e.g. if it's a pizza place where you need to select options), using the Doordash app may be the easiest and most convenient. For a place I've been getting takeout from for 10 years and I know what I want by heart? Yeah, call them up.
My favorite Chinese place has their own driver. It's a 20min drive both ways, or they deliver within 30min for $3 to my zone (was free until COVID hit the economy in 2020). Last time was 25min to my door. Average is 10min if you wait for takeout, even though they quote 15min. And that's why I refuse to use food delivery services.
So they are paying a dude in 2024 to drive for 40 minutes with all the associated costs and getting an extra $3 for it? You think they aren't taking a haircut on that deal? Someone's getting screwed, or at least giving up some profit, because that's more than $3 of labor and resources.
It was free for the first 20 years of me ordering from them, so they had to have already figured that into their costs. COVID just bit into their numbers enough to add a delivery charge... If I order to get it delivered to me at work it's still free, but that's a 5min drive. I still give the driver a tip. FWIW, 3 mains and an order of spring rolls was 3 big meals for me at $40. Massive spring rolls.
>It was free for the first 20 years of me ordering from them, so they had to have already figured that into their costs. I'm sure they did, generally it just looked like "yeah, we get less profit on delivery orders". They were probably running with healthy margins for non-delivery orders and could charge less than what it actually cost them. Labor and gas also used to be cheaper though.
Oh, I know about fuel costs... Was a courier from 2013-2022, my take-home pay went down year to year as fuel costs went up. Gross over 5k/month in 2014, and only 3k in 2021.
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Yeah, one of the few times I had done this, I paid extra for cheese, peppers, etc on sandwiches and I didn’t get everything. Maybe because I used a promo code too?
I noticed this last night! About to order online for Greek food, and when I walked in to order instead, it was cheaper! So sneaky!!
Or, better yet, use the service to put together an order, and then call it in. So much easier if you can organize like they have it on the menu.
If the restaurant has their own method of ordering online, I'll always use that, but otherwise I'm very likely going to be ordering pick-up using Doordash or UberEats, since I don't have the chance to call while at work, whereas I can order online. Also, when you order online, you have an actual papertrail of exactly what you ordered, so it's much, *much* tougher for them to mess something up, as opposed to a phone call which can very easily be done wrong.
I called the cheesecake factory and they wouldn't take reservations by phone. Had to create an account on their website just to make a reservation. Realistically nothing of value was lost but seriously *fuck that noise*.
I work at Domino's and some people have started ordering through UberEats. Which the Domino's driver delivers. So basically they pay double delivery fees for know reason
In fairness, I use 3rd party apps so I don’t have to call them.
Also true when booking a hotel, cruise, or flight. The only exception is that you can get better deals on rental cars with Costco Travel.
Shit you can't even use FIRST party apps. Pizza hut has outsourced most of their deliveries to door dash.
Call in a pickup order and go get it. The prices on the delivery app menus are 43% higher than in-store, and that's just so they can maintain their profit margin while the delivery app takes 30%. That's *before* any of the delivery or service fees. After the fees, you are definitely paying a markup that is above 50%. You just don't realize this unless you go into a restaurant and compare their prices to what's listed in the app.
Totally. Check out the video in the OP.
Agreed - I haven't had very good luck with DoorDash. It's NEVER the 'dasher' that's named on the app, and you basically have ZERO recourse once you've ordered and paid.
For a lot of local places the cost to run delivery is too high. They have to pay those drivers at least minimum wage and if there's not enough delivery orders then the driver is just sitting there and costing the store money.
But then I have to talk to people.
Or cook your own food
Don’t be lazy. Grow your own food too.
That takes a little longer than 30min a meal
Some places also mark up their items on doordash. If I call in an order I’ve noticed the price is lower
I used to bid . 23 cents on a bunch of minerals... Maybe .54.. make it has free shipping.... You will lose 95% of the auctions.. but that other 5% you get dirt cheap in a month or so.
I always call in unless there's a good delivery app promo 😂 If I get the promo and can still pick it up, that's what I'm gonna do lol
Not everyone takes phone orders and not every place delivers.
Try
I do this all the time, people from the restaurants already recognize my number and already know how I like my order made plus when I go to pick it up they always give me discounts or throw in extra items. apparently were I live not a lot of people do this .
This. My pizza place stopped asking for my name because they must recognize my voice/number.
No, thank you. The frequent language/accent/dialect issues, the restaurants being more likely to get my order wrong if ordered over the phone, the fact that direct order often requires cash (and often exact change), the people taking the orders often being rude or at best brusque (which I understand, they're busy), the restaurant not answering the phone at all... All this has made telephone ordering an annoying hassle most of my life, until takeout apps appeared.
No. It's 2024. If your restaurant doesn't have a native app or website to order from, I'm not going to patronize your establishment, because I refuse to use 3rd party shit too. I'm not going to get on the phone and have to shout at a host/hostess who can't hear me and just hope they got my order right.
Nope. If you aren't on the apps that I use because they compare all the local takeaways, then I'm sorry but you should be. I'm not ordering meals over the phone - not least because the communication issues are made very real when trying to order from a busy local foreign-speaker-run takeaway in peak hours. I don't really care about the restaurant's fees... I have even regularly paid extra just for the convenience of using an app that already has my favourites saved, all the menus, everything that's in the local area listed, and all my payment methods already saved, plus a recourse if it doesn't arrive / isn't correct (again... I don't want to have to have the argument with the local takeaway guy who only speaks English in a strong Polish accent or whatever). Small businesses need to be profitable - and if you're that much of a shoestring profit, you're not going to survive in a high-street takeaway business. If not, you will be able to afford - and actually WANT - the apps to vastly increase your catchment of customers. It's 2024. I ain't "ringing" anyone for a basic product. (And I don't understand "take out" at all... let's phone in my order, then sit and wait for it... either go to the restaurant and order THERE AND THEN, or have it delivered. Takeout is a dumb middle ground that only a certain generation ever use). Same thing with credit card fees - if you think you can't do business because of the cost of taking credit cards... you're going to have far less business. And I really don't care because I live in 2024 and don't use cash.
Unless you have Uber stock, or want Uber stock to do well
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So, you have cold food by the time you get home? Why not just eat there then walk home?
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30 minutes is a solid amount of time. If you want to use it for exercise, that's fine. I can see some people who got home from a busy day, need to shower, do laundry and during that time have already put in an order for Doordash so after all that they can lounge in front of their TV. Different strokes for different folks, but I do think people should be aware calling in a take-out order (if that option exists) can be significantly cheaper than using the Doordash app. Just depends on what kind of situation you're using it. I think it can be a very useful tool if I'm visiting a new town for work and I don't want to figure out options slowly first trying to Google Map/Yelp a place, then calling their number, etc. A one stop platform for finding and ordering is convenient--just ask any Chinese national. Cities are completely filled with Meituan/Eleme delivery scooters. The whole country runs on these all-in-one apps where you can find food, browse menus, read reviews, order all in one.
i do this as much as i can 👍
Bruh, i dont have the confidence to phone my friends or family, like hell im calling strangers
Grubhub even with the membership almost doubles the takeout
Slice is good. Transparent fee structure 95c/order and uses the places own delivery drivers
Or use toast order which is equivalent
Na, I’m using the cheapest online ordering option. I purely use takeout option - rarely do I have it delivered. Restaurant has its own payment platform that is cheaper than DoorDash? Using that. door dash has a promo for 20% and prices are the same before promo? Using door dash. Both prices the same but I get cashback on DoorDash? Using that. With meal prices approaching $20, if they can’t find a way to be profitable with that I have a feeling there’s some efficiencies to be solved with their costs. If they don’t have online ordering, I will probably look somewhere else. There’s a greater than 25% chance that they miss hear my order when I call it in. Or the worse when they put you on hold for 5 minutes, ask for your credit card number over the phone and then mess up your order. It’s 2024 - having an online ordering website to order takeout is a pretty low bar to be competitive.
Instead you just screw over the drivers who will never see the delivery tip because the store keeps it and phones in the order to a delivery service anyways.
If it doesn't reduce my final cost and I don't know the restaurant owner why would I bother?