There are laws against unfair competition and abusive labor practices. DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber, and their VC co-conspirators have been ripping off restaurants and their employees, spending capital to operate at a loss in hopes of putting each other out of business, and spent over $200 million in capital to pass Prop. 22 so they could continue misclassifying their employees as independent contractors and pay them even less.
In LA, it’s illegal for third-party delivery services to jack up menu prices.
We haven’t once ordered delivery and always pick up food. We either call for our first preference, but sometimes order online for pickup. Question, some of the restaurants’ websites use Chownow (?) or postmates for pickup option. Are they still docking 20% from the restaurants? That would be pretty shitty considering I’m picking up myself. Many restaurants direct you directly to these platforms instead of a picture of a menu or such.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit I have never ordered delivery, not for personal consumption in any case. Initially, it was due to frugality but with today’s world of delivery, it’s now about making sure as little harm as possible is done to restaurants. I do not have a car, so walking or biking to pick up my food also kills the exercise/move my ass bird with one stone.
But I do order delivery for my mother. She is a retiree who isn’t fluent in English, doesn’t drive and is a luddite. She absolutely doesn’t understand the delivery model we now have–she thinks I’m arranging delivery with the restaurant. Sometimes she harangues me to tell the restauranteur to do this or that as if I’m calling in the order.
I just put in an order for her as I sat down to read this thread. I feel slightly guilty ordering delivery but the service provided for someone like mom, especially during Covid times, is pretty incredible. My mom lives alone and doesn’t drive–an occasional delivered meal is such a treat for her as we near the 1 year Covid slog.
She doesn’t really understand it all–I do not tell her the cost. She knows there’s a tip but doesn’t know about the other charges/fees. Sometimes, I prod her to order more food or higher end food because the fees/tip sometimes outnumber the cost of the food. But you know the immigrant moms, they can’t bring themselves to order a nice meal. I suspect she’s unaware because when she wanted to eat from The Duck House (as a holiday splurge) she refused delivery because TDH takes care of its own delivery and has a $2/mile charge outside of the 5 miles delivery area. She insisted I order pickup and she took the bus to pick it up. I tried to reason with her that the extra $4-6 was no big deal but she could not be moved. I dare not tell her $12 El Pollo Loco dinner tonight had $13 in charges/fees/tip.
Also wanted to add, as much as I dislike the hit restaurants are taking from the online delivery companies–the experience they provide is seamless. My experiences are limited to Doordash and the interface and real time notifications are impressive. There’s a cost to all this, whether it’s equivalent to the fees to restaurant and customers is for debate. Clearly from my posts here, I have little knowledge. Is it big tech making money hand over fist, everyone else be damned? Or are customers unwilling to admit we don’t want to shoulder the true cost of delivery so the restaurants have to take the hit?
Most delivery services still charge restaurants a fee for pickup orders, with the exception of Chownow. It is essentially a referral fee, and pretty common online practice. Ordering directly is still the best way to support a restaurant.
There is a big problem with routing all of a restaurant’s orders to call-in takeout. Ask Spoon by H.
Strange that LA Times Food would miss this dilemma after so recently reporting…
Edit: To make things clear, restaurants open themselves to chargeback claims on ALL telephone orders.
I knew someone would come along and point that out. And you are correct. But in this case a scammer would refuse to present the card upon pickup (“Oh, I forgot my card at home, but I have the info”) and then the restaurant has to absorb the food and labor loss of making that order. Without having the customer present the card in-person in advance, the only way to ensure payment in advance (especially important for big orders) is through a secure online payment gateway.
Lol trust me I know about the forgot my card trick. My first job was at a grocery store and I watched plenty of scammers throw a fit because I’m not dealing with their bullshit. So many scams.
Even still the brand I work for deals with scam attempts quite a bit through online sales. No system is perfect, you still gotta be vigilant.
