As gas prices have gone up, most of the restaurants in my area have added a one- or two-dollar delivery fee. Can anybody tell me who that fee goes to? Is it the delivery person? Their manager?
I’m sure it varies, depending on the ownership of the vehicle used and the reimbursement plan. If you are worried that the money might be going into the wrong hands (thereby screwing somebody), why not ask the delivery person?
Former delivery guy here, it’ll depend on the place and owner. The driver will probably not be honest if you ask him though, the majority of my coworkers would tell customers they didn’t get anything except tips so the customer would feel bad and tip more.
My son is working this summer at a take-out/delivery place that just started delivery fees. The fee goes to the driver, as well as any tip.
Incidentally, they also have a cool little MapQuest-type application on their caller ID which matches the phone number to an address, gives directions, calculates the distance (or tells them the address is out of the delivery area) and gives the fee. A driver who tries to pad the delivery fee gets fired.
I’ve looked into this before, but don’t have a cite for you. What I discovered was that none of the major chains give any portion of the delivery fee to the driver.
-FrL-
Previous thread on subject: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=465142&highlight=delivery+charge
Consensus is that if it’s a chain store, the driver gets the same 50c-$1 they got before the delivery charge started. In other words, the store gets the fee and the driver is getting shafted.
That’s the way it was at the Pizza Slut I worked at. Outta town delivery? That’ll be a $1.50 - FOR THE STORE!
The driver has to drive further and gets less of a tip because the customer thinks that he’s already giving $1.50 to him.
The other pizza place I delivered at, the store and driver split the charge. Better than the 'slut, but I’m still not sure how it was justified.
The pizza place I work for charges $2 per delivery. I get re-imbursed for mileage at 50.5 cents per mile. So that means that unless the delivery is less than 2 miles away from the store (and very few deliveries are), the store does not profit from the delivery charge, and all of the delivery charge (plus more money) goes to me.
Follow-up question: do drivers have to cover their own gas costs, or do they get reimbursed?
See above - they get either a .50c - $1 fee per delivery, or a per-mile fee, plus minimum wageish and tips.
The fee is supposed to cover gas and “wear and tear” on your car.
Ages ago when I delivered pizzas for a non-chain, I got 20% of the pre-tax price, plus tips. We didn’t charge delivery fee; it was part of the cost of doing business. Easily 90% of the sales were delivery.
How expensive was an average pizza? If the place I worked at was like that I probably would’ve made an average of like $600 a week working part time.
The place I worked was a $3, $4, or $5 delivery charge plus tip. We covered a fairly large area though. No hourly wage, so they usually had way more drivers than necessary. I’d end up making $400 a week (~25 hours) minus 200 or so miles worth of gas.
Why did you put wear and tear in quotes?
Because it doesn’t (cover wear and tear). I delivered pizza in a seven-year-old Honda Accord and while the fee might have covered gas and tires (just about) it certainly didn’t cover anything more.
Also, I don’t like the phrase.
I don’t think I got an hourly wage. Most orders back then were under $20, and the majority were between $7 and $25. A good Friday/Saturday night cleared over $100 easily each, but the weekdays were slow. Military town, and it was just a second job for me.
If they are matching the IRS rate, good news! It went up to 58.5 cents 7/1/08.