What's wrong with delivery services in LA?

I wonder if Uber would consider . They pick up and deliver people . With a hefty fee to make it worth while delivering food . Possible ? I have no idea .

UberEats is real

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Didn’t even know it existed or ever used Uber . Thanks for the info .

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A lot of kids do this, especially with working parents and when they’ve outgrown the nanny. The boy and his friends all have Postmates and UberEats.

I try to teach the boy to cook. He is not interested. He would rather starve or skateboard four blocks for a taco, rather than get a plate, put food on it, and nuke it.

My focus is on brainwashing him to automatically and unthinkingly always order a vegetable dish with his takeout/delivery.

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And don’t forget Amazon Prime (Same Day Delivery), which now has a list of restaurants to its roster.

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I agree. The distances, the traffic, the lack of public transportation and the clement weather (so people can pick up their take out without bundling up) make it way more challenging to deliver food in Los Angeles than in San Francisco or New York.

I grew up in a time where Home Ec classes were a legend of yesteryear. My high school used the kitchen classrooms to house the Special Ed classes. But I managed to learn how to cook because eating out all the time can easily make you fat and poor. I engage my kids in the kitchen to help prepare their favorite dishes to try to encourage a love of cooking. It’s taken to the oldest…he can make a fairly good breakfast without any help from us. He’s a huge fan of the 63 degree sous vide egg. I’m hoping the other two will soon follow.
I will admit that my Mom is an excellent cook, so that likely helped inspire my love for the kitchen. But really…eating out all the time can really be bad for you.

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Hey, Gen X doesn’t vape. That’s for those Millenials with their “smoking is gross” and “pot smells funny”

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I use Grubub from time to time. Haven’t noticed places disappearing from the site. In fact, the list grows longer each time I log on.

I avoid Eat24/Yelp because the delivery fees are ridiculous. Sometimes higher than for the same restaurant on Grubhub.

I will say the Uber Eats app may be a game changer. A flat fee of $5 is frequently less than delivery charge + tip on Grubhub.

UberEats is probably losing money and they may drop the service if they can’t figure out how to make it profitable.

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Enjoy it while it lasts cuz that rate isn’t going to last forever.

GrubHub/ChowNow will be the only survivors.

It does seem a little too good to be true. But I’m happy enough with Grubhub, if it comes to that.

I use ChowNow a lot for takeout but not delivery. Do they have their own drivers like Grubhub now does? Or do they just connect you with the restaurant, which then delivers the food itself, like Grubhub used to do?

It looks like Uber Eats has dropped it’s Instant Delivery service. I can’t seem to get a Godmother within 5 minutes anymore.

You poor thing!

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I’ve never found any of the delivery services (grubhub, eat24, etc) to be useful at ALL. Inevitably, the restaurant I would like to get doesn’t deliver to my address, or if they do, they price the minimum order large enough that I’d end up ordering two meals just to meet it. And almost always, if I call the restaurant directly, they WILL deliver to my place even if I’m one block over their limit, and they WILL deliver an order for 14.98 when the minimum is 15.00.

And this way, I’m supporting the restaurant itself, and not making them peel off whatever percentage is going to the sharks at yelp or uber or whatever ‘disrupting’ service is trying to pry their way between me and and my sesame beef and potstickers.

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ChowNow outsources to Postmates. Most Postmates and customers are not aware of this relationship.

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We use delivery services at work sometimes, when several of us want to order from a place that doesn’t normally deliver to our work area. (we work in an industrial area with not many food options nearby).

We used to use DoorDash and Eat24, but we found Eat24 to be very unreliable – missing food, late deliveries, etc. Had similar issues with DoorDash, but not as bad. We prefer using Postmates for most deliveries now. The service fee is higher, but (knock on wood), no missing food or delayed deliveries so far (we’ve ordered about a dozen times through them).

I’ve used LABite and UberEats for delivery. ChowNow I’ve only ever used to place an order for pick up.

I think at some point a couple of businesses will find just the right balance that proves profitable, reliable, and reasonable. Right now, there are too many options and each requires different sacrifices from both the restaurant and the customer.

And I suspect that plenty of restaurants will never opt in. I do see restaurants dropping from the list of options, but many of the places that seem to be opting out are not places that can even handle the added business. Often, the consistency issues arise because RESTAURANT X can barely serve the in-house clients during a rush. They can’t also reliably deal with these third-party pick-up/delivery operations.

I’m really torn about this. I like supporting restaurants but I prefer to use a credit card for these transactions, and I’ve noticed most restaurants don’t take basic security precautions with credit card numbers. Obviously, online transactions aren’t immune from fraud either, but it’s a lot more secure than some guy writing your cc number on a loose slip of paper.

Interesting. I was among the unaware.

Oh yeah, any tips that you put into the ChowNow platform are given to the restaurant, not the Postmate. As you can imagine, Postmates (the guys actually delivering to you) are less than amused.

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