I would definitely expect default delivery to be to your apartment door. However, if you have an injury or some other issue that makes it imperative, you should say so.
I would not hesitate to give a 1-star rating to any driver who refused to come to my door. That’s really the only language anybody understands in a gig economy. If you’re not using an app, call the restaurant and tell them you won’t be ordering from them again and why. If you just sit and stew, nothing will change.
In my apartment, you need a key to even get into the building. I think it’s theoretically possible to call an apartment and get buzzed in, but that depends on a landline phone, which I don’t have. So if I ordered delivery food, I’d need to go down to the front door, no way around it.
We’re in a second floor walk-up in a complex that is bisected by a busy street. Other than the occasional driver who gets lost and calls, making one of us to go find them, pretty much everyone delivers to the door (the stairwell is open-air so there is no other door between ours and the outside). Part of the problem was the GPS pointing to the wrong side of the street, I think notifying Google Maps that the centerline for our block somehow got reversed fixed that problem.
We really don’t know if it’s easy for a delivery driver to get to the OP’s apartment door (as with your apartment), or if it’s difficult (as with Chronos’s apartment). We don’t know if he’s on the 2nd floor, or the 20th. We don’t know if finding parking in front of his building is easy or difficult.
I asked him about all of that in post #43, two days ago. He’s been back to his thread since then, but hasn’t answered.
Serious question… when is the last time you tried Domino’s? They have really stepped up their game in the last few years and it is much better than it used to be.
My door is hooked into a phone line, which is separated from the other land line. It’s the only time a real bell rings anymore.
Am I right that you are going without a doorbell because you don’t want to have a land line?
I’m on a low floor in an elevator building. I answer all questions.
So, a delivery person does need to take an elevator to get to your apartment (or climb several flights of stairs), and does need to have you buzz him or her in.
What about the parking situation?
If you check I described my street as a “main thoroughfare with an empty building across the street.” in an urban college town with many levels of food quality too.
Is this enough?
You got parking outside. It’s resident, but some is not.
Kenobi: What is your experience wtih delivery, and what is your own domain like?
Do we have the concept that these are professional drivers, and deliverers who are in and out all the time doing this? That they have grappled with the parking problem before the night I ordered.
Doesn’t answer the question at all, honestly. Let me be more specific:
Is there street parking in front of (or very close to) your building? Is that street parking usually full? Are open spaces restricted to residents?
In other words: if someone (i.e., a delivery driver) wants to park very close to your building, on the street, can he reliably expect to be able to get a parking place? Or, will he likely be forced to double-park? If he has to double-park, just how busy is the “main thoroughfare” that you’re on? How badly will he be blocking traffic if he’s blocking a lane for several minutes? Do the local police regularly ticket cars for double-parking?
Because, with the additional information you’ve finally provided, it will take him several minutes, at least. He has to get out of the car, go to the entrance of your building, get hold of you, have you buzz him in, go upstairs (which we now know involves waiting for the elevator), find your apartment on the floor, wait for you to answer the door, get paid, give you your food, wait for the elevator again, go back to his car, and depart.
I live in a single-family house, so my experiences probably aren’t terribly relevant, as they come to the front door. I order from a couple of different places, and probably get food delivered at least twice a month. I’ve been ordering from them for years, and the locally-owned, mom-and-pop places are awesome for delivery. That said, they know me, they recognize the address when it comes up, and they know that I tip well, so I suspect that I get my food dropped off first on their trips.
I also sometimes order from Domino’s (I get a taste for it sometimes), and that can be terribly hit-or-miss. As far as I can tell, if they’re down a driver on a particular evening, delivery becomes a disaster, and a cold pizza (when it finally arrives) is the outcome.
Honestly, I think that that’s a bold assumption on your part. They are “professional” from the standpoint that, yes, this is their job, and they’re getting paid (probably not terribly much) to do it. In my experience, they are not “professional drivers” in the sense that a UPS driver or a taxi driver is a “professional driver.” My understanding is that there’s an awful lot of churn / job turnover in food delivery, many of them likely haven’t been doing it for very long, and (frankly) a lot of them just don’t care that much. It’s a McJob, and they don’t enjoy it much.
It isn’t cool, but if I order delivery 4 times from separate places and they all show up hand warmed, I’m going to start specifying.
Please note, I’m really not trying to be argumentative or pedantic. drad dog, you’ve come across as surprised and frustrated that the delivery people aren’t automatically coming to your apartment door.
I’m truly trying to suss out whether this is just lazy or incompetent delivery people (which it might well be), or if the amount of time and effort that it’d take to come all the way to your apartment door is a factor (which it also sounds like it might be).
Another factor, which I have already suggested, is that, as you’ve noted several times, you’re in a college town. If the delivery people are accustomed to college students giving them lousy tips, that may also be a disincentive for them to go all the way to your apartment (and they also may be used to dealing with young college students who’ll readily come down to the front door).
In college towns, wouldn’t most delivery people be college students themselves?
You are thinking about this even more than I am, yet somehow not very effectively.
“Professional drivers” means they do it for money, so when an obstacle comes up they don’t need to “phone a friend” to figure out what to do in the big city. Jeez.
AFAIK it may take several minutes for a food delivery. What is your point? That they are shocked by this?
AFAICT drivers like short hops because they are shorter. YMMV
AFAIK people tip drivers, even college students. You are creating scenarios here.
As far as questions about the condition of the street for parking, I’m not on the street. That’s why I called for delivery. Do you live on a street where you can tell how the parking that minute is by saying “That’s the way it always is” ? I don’t. Delivery usually happens anyway, and zeno beats the tortoise.
The idea that the customer gets a panicked call from deliverer because they don’t know how to deal with city parking, well, it’s absolutely new to me, here in the city. Ridiculous.
I am tempted to come down and not tip actually and call the place and tell them why.
My point is that delivering it to your apartment door (which you expect, and which, I agree, should be the norm) is apparently more of a PITA than some of these drivers expect, or want to deal with, especially if most of their customers in apartments readily come down to meet them at the front door.
I’m hypothesizing, but I’m also remembering when I was a college student. “Hey, we’ve got enough for pizza!” That conversation nearly never included calculation of giving the driver a tip.
Also, 5 seconds of googling “Are college students bad tippers” gave me a ton of links to discussions among delivery drivers which pretty much uniformly agree that, yes, college students, as a group, are among the worst tippers.
And, that’s my point. You live in a college town. College students are generally known to be crappy tippers. I think it’s not an unreasonable hypothesis that delivery drivers in your town regularly get small (or non-existent) tips. And, if that’s the case, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re not eager to do more than the bare minimum to deliver an order.
That is why I said “usually” when I rephrased my question. I can tell you that, usually, it’s not hard to find a parking spot in front of my house. On occasion, that’s not the case, but it normally is. My friend who lives in a very congested area on the north side of Chicago can tell you that, usually, it’s very difficult to find an open parking place on his block.
If, usually, there isn’t easy street parking to be had in front of your building, that could be a factor. Get it?