I’ve noticed locally that my favorite restaurants are only listed on one delivery service. Like Door Dash or Bite Squad. Sometimes the restaurant disappears from one App and I find it on another one.
Do they sign a contract to only use one delivery service at any one time?
It’s not a big deal. Just curious
Several restaurants have left Bite Squad and went to Door Dash. I asked one of the restaurant managers why and he said they’d had problems with B Squad.
I was in a Taco Bell a couple of weeks ago, and noticed that they had marked spots on the counter for pickup by DoorDash, Uber Eats, and… one other I don’t recall.
That’s a good question. I can add an anecdotal experience. I was friends with a restaurant owner of a well liked local restaurant that had been in business decades. The restaurant had dine-in or to-go (all pre-Covid). He HATED the delivery services.
The restaurant owner’s problems were:
(1) I take pride in the quality of my food. He can guarantee it’s to his standards when restaruant gives it to the customer - whether they dine in or take it to go - what the customer decides to do with it is up to the customer. However, if it goes to a delivery service, he loses control of that. Example - give quality food to delivery driver. Driver takes 45mins to get to customer and delivers crap food. Customer is dissatisfied with restaurant.
(2) It created too much volume at peak hours. Generally, more is better, but only to a point. He was not able to keep up with demand and still keep the same quality of food.
It was very difficult to get his restaurant off the delivery service apps.
The only Asian service delivery I have tried was Chow Bus, which recently shut down in Canada.
I think most places aren’t sophisticated enough, which is why they are using an outsourced delivery/ordering company in the first place. Even if they are tech savvy and can hook into the providers API, the cost of development would be prohibitive for a non-chain restaurant.
Where I am, we’ve had a lot of complaints about Grub Hub. Although they have not asked the restaurants, they are listing their menus and taking orders. I guess Grub Hub then makes an order from the restaurant and picks it up and delivers it themselves and charges the Grub Hub delivery fee. And in many cases, deliver the wrong food or doesn’t even deliver the order. And the restaurants get slammed with the complaints.
One restaurant in particular is still trying to have Grub Hub stop listing their menu and has gone to court over it.
The local Chinese place I order from has a problem with Grub Hub doing that shit. So I always make sure I go to the restaurant’s site and order directly (and their delivery guy gets to deliver and get the tip). Not Grub Hub.
Bite Squad was the most successful delivery in my suburban area. They had the widest range of restaurants. Something changed and they’ve lost several restaurants that I like.
I had to install Door Dash to find my favorite places.
So far that’s the only delivery Apps that I use. I may install grubhub and see what they offer.
Many times there’s no agreement at all and the restaurant hates the fact that the delivery service buys food from them. Grubhub/doordash/etc. don’t even approach the restaurant sometmes - they just comb the web for the restaurant’s website and menu, add it to their own ordering website, make it look as if it’s official when it’s not, and then start taking orders. They then call or send their drivers in to order from the restaurant posing as an ordinary customer, often trying to hide the fact that it’s a GH/DD/whatever order.
Many restaurants justifiably hate this behavior. With no official agreement, the delivery service is just guessing at the menu of the restaurant. Maybe they pulled an outdated one off the web and it’s different now. Very common. So imagine the hassle when the delivery service takes an order for an item that’s not even on the restaurant’s menu - the driver doesn’t know what to do, the restaurant doesn’t know what to do, the customer gets pissed off at the restaurant.
When there’s something wrong with the order (because the delivery service didn’t order it right, or the driver was slow or didn’t do a good job for whatever reason) then the customer calls them up to complain or writes a bad review for the restaurant for their crappy service - a service that the restaurant not only doesn’t offer, but actively does not want to happen.
The whole thing is super unethical and probably should be illegal, gig companies do a lot of scummy stuff.
That said, there are obviously a lot of above-board official partnerships, but it doesn’t seem to require exclusivity. Many restaurants have an official partnership with multiple sites, and many don’t. Maybe they get a discount for signing an exclusivity agreement, or maybe one of them made a better offer than another.