Chicago Sues Grubhub and DoorDash for Allegedly Scamming Basically Everyone: Restaurants, Drivers, and Customers.
https://chicago.eater.com/2021/8/27/226 ... y-delivery

Grubhub, the struggling US meal-delivery business, is getting a second chance. On Wednesday, the company announced that it was teaming up with retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc., which is adding food delivery as a perk for millions of Amazon Prime members.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newslett ... g-business

Amazon Prime members get a free year of GrubHub+
Free delivery on orders over $12 and other perks.
Cancel before the 12 months are up, or you will start getting charged $9.99/month.
Not sure I want more of my money going to either of those corporations, but some folks here may wish to take advantage.

JoelF wrote:Amazon Prime members get a free year of GrubHub+
Free delivery on orders over $12 and other perks.
Cancel before the 12 months are up, or you will start getting charged $9.99/month.
Not sure I want more of my money going to either of those corporations, but some folks here may wish to take advantage.

Man, I just cannot go there. I actually uninstalled all these 3rd party apps from my phone. In the long run, I don't think they really help the restaurants at all and, in fact, probably do more harm than good. It's just a shame that they're now going into zombie mode and not being allowed to die a natural death.

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Grubhub lays off 15% of corporate workforce, or about 400 employees

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/12/grubhub ... force.html

DoorDash warns diners: If you don’t tip, expect a longer wait

at washingtonpost.com, Emily Heil wrote:Tipping can be confusing these days, with various added service charges and fees. But sometimes, it comes down to a simple proposition: Not tipping at all can be a bad thing.

That’s what DoorDash is telling its customers via a pilot program that it started testing this year in which customers who enter an order and choose no tip for the delivery person might have to wait longer to get their food. The company offered details this week about how the feature works, after warning messages started showing up in consumers’ apps. Some people who choose the option of a zero tip were met with a screen letting them know: “Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered — are you sure you want to continue?” They are then given the choice to add a tip or continue without one — at their peril.

The company explained that the system, which is being tested in random locations around the U.S. and Canada, is intended to create incentives against cheapskates.

“As independent contractors,” the delivery workers, called Dashers, “have full freedom to accept or reject offers based on what they view as valuable and rewarding,” DoorDash spokeswoman Jenn Rosenberg said in a statement. “While the vast majority of customers do leave a tip, offers that don’t include a tip can be seen as less desirable — this impacts our entire community, leading to longer wait times for customers, orders sitting longer at merchants, and less value for Dashers.”

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ronnie_suburban wrote:DoorDash warns diners: If you don’t tip, expect a longer wait

This makes some sense. Why would one expect exceptional or preferential service without providing any tip, especially if other customers are tipping?

Otoh, why should any customer be asked to tip before their order is delivered? The sense of entitlement here is just a bit much. I'm very glad that I don't use any of these delivery services. It was a nice convenience for a short time but I think they do a lot more harm than good.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:DoorDash warns diners: If you don’t tip, expect a longer wait

This makes some sense. Why would one expect exceptional or preferential service without providing any tip, especially if other customers are tipping?

Otoh, why should any customer be asked to tip before their order is delivered? The sense of entitlement here is just a bit much. I'm very glad that I don't use any of these delivery services. It was a nice convenience for a short time but I think they do a lot more harm than good.

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I like the Uber/Lyft model for this in which one receives a message post-service reminding the consumer of the option to tip

ronnie_suburban wrote:Otoh, why should any customer be asked to tip before their order is delivered? The sense of entitlement here is just a bit much. I'm very glad that I don't use any of these delivery services. It was a nice convenience for a short time but I think they do a lot more harm than good.

I've never been a user of the delivery/ordering platforms, but the tip-before-service is an especially irritating perversion of the cause and effect at the heart of the business. Another factor that turns me off is that I intentionally tip in cash in almost all circumstances. I don't want there to be a record, because I don't want the recipient to pay taxes on it. So doing the best form of tipping, would get you branded a non-tipping cheapskate.

We recently read about the appearance in Evanston of a Seattle restaurant (Piroshky, Piroshky, apparently a popular place there). We were considering placing an order and so put together a sample cart to see what add-ons there would be to the final price. (Delivery is not included; we have to pick our order up.) The good news is that there only one add-on. The exception? If you want the items in your order labeled, there is an upcharge of $4.
I have seen some odd charges over the course of the pandemic, but I gotta say that charging me $4 for labeling the items (in an order with a $50 minimum, meaning at least seven different items) strikes me as, um...well, maybe I'd best refrain from further comment.

Gypsy Boy wrote:We recently read about the appearance in Evanston of a Seattle restaurant (Piroshky, Piroshky, apparently a popular place there). We were considering placing an order and so put together a sample cart to see what add-ons there would be to the final price. (Delivery is not included; we have to pick our order up.) The good news is that there only one add-on. The exception? If you want the items in your order labeled, there is an upcharge of $4.
I have seen some odd charges over the course of the pandemic, but I gotta say that charging me $4 for labeling the items (in an order with a $50 minimum, meaning at least seven different items) strikes me as, um...well, maybe I'd best refrain from further comment.

Just a thought: skip the $4 for labeling items. Bring your own sticky labels, then ask them to identify the food as you slowly write labels yourself. Of course, ask them to spell anything you do not know.

They just might tip you to go away.

Regards,
Cathy2

Gypsy Boy wrote:If you want the items in your order labeled, there is an upcharge of $4.

The kicker being that their entire product line is essentially products that cannot be readily identified visually, at least not for first-time customers. 5411 Empanadas, with a similar encased product line, is smart enough to identify their empanadas' contents on the pastry itself (crimped into the edge) so that you're not forced to guess.

Great business minds at work here.

This is not a recent development but Lou Malnati's has canned their delivery drivers and has "seamlessly" (some might call it secretly) moved to the ultra pathetic DoorDash to handle their deliveries. There's zero mention of it on their site but when it comes to check-out, needless to say there's some squirrelly business going. It's not until after an order is placed that the texts start coming in from DoorDash. Aha!

The default tip amount is set at 15%. I'm sorry but it's still just a dude (or other) bringing me a pizza in a box and no amount of anything will ever change that fact. I tip -- and take pride in being generous -- but this isn't table service. It's not even Shop & Drop. ~$12 tip to deliver 2 pizzas? Hey, fuck you!

There's zero logic in this sort of solicitation because the delivery is handled by an entirely separate entity than Lou's, so you're not even rewarding a restaurant employee. On top of that, not only is there already a delivery charge on every order but because DoorDash must double-dip and gouge all involved to maintain its very existence, as the transaction completes, an additional "Service Charge" gets added to the bill. What service have they provided other than the one for which I'm already being charged?

I really don't see this model as sustainable. And while I haven't made any conscious decisions about how frequently I order out, I almost never do it anymore. And I'm probably not alone. When I'm not cooking for myself is when I most feel like I'm touching a hot stove. Oh, the irony. Live and learn, I guess.

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Yup and double-yup. We order in every Friday evening and have for years. And a couple or more years ago, I said, I'm happy to keep doing so but I absolutely, positively refuse to patronize anyone who requires me to use DoorDash. This isn't the place to itemize their various and sundry (but nevertheless extensive list of) sins. Suffice to say, the only way I get delivery from them now is when (as a few weeks ago), I am surprised to see a restaurant from whom we order directly use them (in which case, somehow, I cannot discern the added fee, though no doubt the restaurant is paying for it).
Fortunately, we have found more places in the past year have moved to a model where they offer a variety (at least three) different vendors through whom we can place our order. As to the specific sin of adding a "service" fee, DoorDash seems only outdone in the size of the add-on by the folks at the ever-greedy Grubhub.