January 7, 2021 – Germantown, WI – So, are you someone that thinks DoorDash and Grubhub are great delivery companies? Do you think they help struggling restaurants during this time?
Let me fill you in on the reality….
First, the amount of money they take from bottom line of a restaurant it is partnered with is insane.
Second there are articles saying about 40% of the drivers tamper with the food. Gross
Finally, restaurants become the ones taking the risk and liability as these organizations take no responsibility. Cold food, wrong food, delivery taking too long.
So, we have two restaurants. Two different concepts. We do not partner with any of these delivery services. Now these companies are adding non-partnered restaurants to their platform without knowledge or permission from the restaurants.
Last night we had two incidents at both restaurants with both these delivery companies who we do not contract with.
Barley Pop – DoorDash calls to be picked up at 6:05 at 8:00 management asks me what to do as the food was never picked up, never paid for.
I said due to health codes it should have been thrown out a long time ago it is not safe to serve so throw it out. And if they come to get it do not remake it. Tell them sorry.
So, we threw out a large order of food. DoorDash never came. We lost our cost of this food and have no idea if someone will call and complain they did not get their food last night or write a bad review on social media. We had loss because of this and we have more potential loss if we get blasted on social media.
Precinct order is called in last night, we have no clue it’s being picked up by a Grubhub delivery person. He tells us their name we go to ring him up. Gentleman shows our server what he is supposed to be picking up and that grub hub already charged the customer.
Grubhub charged them for 3 items, two of which are not even on our menu. So they took in more money than they should have and took food that we are unsure the customer even wanted. We look at the Grubhub app, who again we are not contracted with. Sure thing a menu from 7 months ago is on their app. Again, we assume the liability if these folks are unhappy and we run the risk of getting blasted on social media.
I can’t stress enough how bad these services are. They are pandering to your desire and need to stay home and order in and the delivery services are perceived to be helping restaurants. The amount of sales a restaurant would need to do to make up the financial loss from the cut these companies make would be massive volume.
Support local. Most places at this point have curbside pickup take advantage of that. We are fine if you are in your jammies for pickup. Just do not support another company piggybacking off already struggling restaurants. Right now, it is not what is needed. They/we don’t need to assume the irresponsibility of a third party at the risk of damaging our own business.
And no, we didn’t know we were listed on these apps. They did not ask our permission and there is no way for you, the consumer, to know if a restaurant is partnered. And I imagine it will be next to impossible for us to get our information removed from their apps.
Jodi Janisse-Kanzenbach is the owner and head chef at Precinct Tap & Table in Germantown. She is also the operating partner at Barley Pop Pub & Restaurant in Germantown.
