I got kinda burned when I tried to order direct from a restaurant. The last time we ate there they included a little "order online" card with a link to their website. So the next time, in the spirit of supporting businesses directly, I went to their site and ordered. They did use a third-party handler (ChowNow I think?), but I figured it was a kind of order management third-party. In fact, after placing the order, I got an additional email from that third-party handler congratulating me on ordering directly from restaurants, and that they explicitly don't charge restaurants a fee. Neat, right? Well, Lo and behold, behind the scenes they just used DoorDash to handle delivery...

That sucked because A) it was more hassle for me to sign up for Yet Another Account, and B) I have DashPass (free delivery and discounted service charge) but didn't get to use it, so it ended up costing me more even with the coupon the restaurant threw in.

Hell, there are even pizza places around me that use DoorDash for delivery. Pizza places, for goodness sake!

It's a weird world I suppose.

Restaurants that have partnered with DoorDash for delivery logistics only will pay usually around $7 per order (this varies depending on geography and overall partner terms).

However, the key difference is that this delivery fee is almost always passed on to the customer. So from a restaurant's perspective, they are getting a great deal: Delivery logistics for customers who want delivery, but if they're using a low/no commission direct ordering service, they keep (most of) the full order margin.

Did you mean 7 percent of the order perhaps?

If it's a "mom and pop joint" with 1 or maybe at most a handful of locations located in the area, skip the app and just call it in. Nothing to download or sign up for, no chance for an unseen middle-man. These non-chain restaurants are literally the "service industry", I've found I always get a higher level of service when talking to a human on the phone, at a couple of our regular places the servers that pickup ask how I'm doing, have an idea of how we like things, politely inquire about the kids, etc... A couple of them offer online ordering, but I always just pickup the phone and hand over my credit card when they bring the food out, IMO it's a better experience for all parties involved.

Edit: Caveat, I'm old enough that to-go/delivery over the phone was the only option at one point, not app first; and even before the pandemic found DoorDash and their ilk to be parasites that I wouldn't use.

If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that restaurants as a concept are just kind of terrible and unnecessary, at least for the bulk of the world’s unremarkable places.

If a perfect vaccine was distributed to every person on the planet right now I wouldn’t be back to visit 95% of restaurants out there.

During “lockdown” I learned to make all kinds of food and way more interesting, higher quality cocktails than 95% of bars and restaurants have, for a fraction of the price.

I learned that my restaurant visits were there to satisfy an emotional desire, and they didn’t even do a great job of that.

I learned that the desire for a “quick meal” is a farce, that homemade food isn’t really a time sink for someone deep into the habit.

My future restaurant visits will be way more sparse and deliberate. I’m going to be holding restaurants to the standard of making something that I literally can’t make at home without going to culinary school and apprenticing under a master chef.

It isn’t a noble act to support your local business if the business isn’t meeting your needs, and at this point I’m not sure how my local dive is going to be able to adapt to my modified needs.

I could see how the restaurant delivery would be worse if that particular restaurant is bad at delivering. Also, the app model does seem like it should be cheaper at scale by using the deliverer’s labor more efficiently.

One Friday night here in Sydney, it was raining like crazy - so we ordered in some food from one of the online groups. 2 hours later and multiple talks with support and they were still telling us stories about how it's nearly there.

We eventually called the restaurant directly and the food had been sitting ready for 90 minutes on the counter. The service just had all their gig-economy-staff decide this isn't the gig for them in bad weather, so no one was available to pick it up and deliver it. They said we could pick it up ourselves but we didn't really feel like old food at that point so we cancelled and drove out somewhere else. Being lied to was the most annoying part.

This is a weird set of complaints.

1. Usually, there would be some lag time between when you order the food, and when the restaurant finishes making it. This would overlap with the time required for the driver to go to the restaurant and pick up the food; the app model isn't actually introducing a delay there.

2. Restaurants that do delivery themselves also use the same driver to deliver multiple orders at once. You're definitely better off with a dedicated driver, but the restaurant is much worse off. Again, this would not appear to be related to the app model. We order pizza and pick it up ourselves, because if the pizza place delivers it, it arrives stale and we pay extra for delivery.

That's not how it works. I order a lot and the driver is always there to pick it up as soon as it's ready. The driver obviously gets notified about the delivery as soon as the restaurant confirms the order.

This is you self promoting your app.

Restaurants will pay more to market themselves, hire delivery drivers, and manage the logistics.

Local restaurants are hurting because of COVID. They are blaming the delivery services, whose proprietary tech, marketing spend, logistics services are the only reason 90% could maintain any revenue stream.

Okay, but it seems like a reasonable time to promote a relevant app that is apparently free with no ads. It's not like your post is completely free of agenda.

> Restaurants will pay more to market themselves, hire delivery drivers, and manage the logistics.

This is simply not true. Adding middle men does not make this more efficient, and I'm really not sure why you think it does.

One basic reason it's not true, is that business owners won't necessarily pay for these things at all, they may just do them themselves. Sometimes it's easier to produce effort than it is to produce cash to buy effort.