How long should you wait for food delivery? (Sort of a rant)

This evening, at 6:30, I called a local Chinese food place, which we’ve called before, to have take-out food delivered. They had been prompt in previous deliveries, for years, but now nothing came for nearly an hour. Then I got a call from a resident at the mobile home across the street–same space number–to whom the driver had gone by mistake. We do not have the same address number! I had to make three more calls before we got our delivery–about an hour and a half after my original call. Naturally, we will not be ordering from that place again.
How long is too long to wait? And what is the proper course of action when you have had enough?

As far as the ‘across the street’ thing (and I’m not sure how it works with same space number, not the same address number), I’d be willing to bet the driver pulled up your address on Google Maps. IME about half the time you do that, if you go to street view, it shows you a picture of the house on the wrong side of the road. My guess is that the driver used Google Maps on their phone, arrived there, hit street view and went to the house in the picture instead of actually looking at the address (or you said something about a space number matching). Try typing in your address, the way the delivery place had it, into Google Maps and hit the street view button and see which house shows up. If it’s your house and you have a suffix (ie Lot D), take that off and see if the makes a difference.

Anyways, back to the question, so an hour after you ordered, the neighbor called with your food, did you run over their and get it? I can understand you calling and complaining and if I were the delivery place (and I’ve been on that end), I’d certainly offer to refund your money, I wouldn’t even think twice about it, but, I mean, it’s like right there. Even if you want them to bring new food out it is going to take them time to remake it and redeliver it.

The proper course of action? Personally, I would have just grabbed it from the neighbor and not really thought more of it. If I wanted to raise a stink about it, I would have called them, like you did and asked them to fix it. If it got to a second or third call, I would have told them to forget about it, refund my money and don’t bother sending it.

I have a question for you, what did you tell them when you called them? If you just told them that they delivered to the wrong address, that could be an explanation for why you had to call them a few more times. They may have thought you were just called to complain and not expecting them to run back out there. If you did ask for new food, as I said above, it’s probably going to take as long as the first delivery.

It’s not so simple. I live on one side of Western Avenue, a four-lane arterial street with heavy traffic. It was already dark when I made the original call–and I don’t run very well–I am overweight–and I have had surgery on the veins in my legs…and I don’t know where “Space 19” is in the park across the street–and I could not assume that the driver would stay there and wait for me. Also, the restaurant had apparently closed for the day for sit-down business so I could not contact them. I was able to contact the driver, however, on his own cell phone…He did eventually deliver to us, and I paid him for the food–without a tip, of course.

Uh… This place has given you good service for years, and one bad experience, you’re willing to write them off? :dubious:
The proper course of action is to lighten up a little. Jeez

I’d give them a break. It sounds like they have a new delivery driver.

If it happens again, then I’d think about making a change, but not with a one time thing.

Until it arrives.

/Zen

Sounds like a perfect storm–new driver, restaurant closed, you unable to get to where the food was. If this is the first time, I’d let it go, and next time you call for delivery, ask them to make sure the guy knows exactly where to go, and has your number in case of problems. They want to keep your business–they will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I sympathize with your problem; waiting overtime for delivery is horrible. I’ve had this problem with some delivery apps–they say an hour, then as time passes the delivery time gets slowly pushed further back, and I’m getting hangry and want to cancel, but delivery from another place is going to start the clock again, and I’ve had a glass of wine so I don’t want to go out to get something…

45 minutes in most cases; say an hour during football season in some places. Much over an hour and I doubt I’ll be calling them much in the future.

How did the resident from across the street know to call you? Has this kind of mixup happened before?

I live in an area where they decided to have just a limited number of street names, and jazz them up with things like Way, Lane, Drive, Circle. Some of these streets (ways, avenues, lanes) also disappear for a few blocks, then resume for another block or two, disappear again…or change names when you go around a curve. So we all know to kind of double check everything when getting deliveries. The first time. But really, the driver should be responsible for figuring out where the food’s gonna go. They would get one more chance with me.

It depends on where you live, too. There are only two restaurants around here who deliver so I’d probably put up with a whole lot more than a late delivery.

I’m fortunate because I live in a small town (about 15,000 folk.)
When I first got here a friend recommended a take-away place, so I gave them a go.

25 years later, I’m still using them. :cool:
Orders arrive within 15-25 minutes (even for two course Indian meals); they know my voice on the phone and even send me a Xmas card.

I would be very happy to have delivery Indian food. Sigh.

To the OP: yes, give them another chance. One mistake after years of good service should not kill the entire relationship. Just make sure you talk to them the next time you call and give them a few specifics about where to go.

I get delivery a lot (A LOT) and my rule of thumb is I wait an hour before I will call to find out what’s going on unless they warned me it will be a long wait then I just wait since, well, they warned me.

I want to answer your own question by highlighting part of it.

You have received delivery service from them before. Therefore, you have a realistic baseline to estimate from. Typically, how long does it take them to deliver?

Add a few minutes or a few percent of that number to it and use that as the value for “how long should I wait?”.

And I’m glad you’re not firing them over a screwup like that. New delivery drivers have to learn the ropes somehow, and that means that some lucky customer is going to get slightly hosed by the newbie’s mistakes. I applaud your patience. We were all new at whatever we’re doing once upon a time, but things only get better with patience.

It is a scandal any American should ever have to wait more than 30 minutes for food. Lives are at stake.
You need to raise heck with your congressthing to make sure nothing like this happens again.

::Pours (luke warm) wonton soup over kayaker’s head::

I rarely order for delivery, but I feel like they usually give me an estimate when I make the order. So, I’d call about 5-10 minutes after the high end of the estimate, and I’d be annoyed after about 20 minutes after the high end of the estimate.

An option you can use to avoid waiting and being frustrated is to tip heavily.
My family has been using the same Pizza joint for 15+ years. The delivery guys get to our house in a flash ! Usually in only 35 minutes + or - .
Our food is piping HOT !

The only time our pizza/meals arrive at the “official” delivery time quoted by the order taker {1 hour} is when it’s a new driver.
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