101–110 of 169 posts
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We say shopping at Whole Foods, Walmart, and Kroger.
Local grocery stores have basically been extinct for decades- and realistically that isn't that surprising given they mostly sell commodity products. We don't need to let restaurants suffer the same fate.
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Well, when you're in the business of selling a dollar for eighty cents, all the money probably got flushed down the toilet.
How were they selling a dollar for 80 cents? The actual food is more expensive on grubhub than ordering through the restaurant, and then there are multiple fees on top of that.
whoa, they own Chai Pani and Fred's Meat and Bread, both of which are _excellent_ fast casual spots in Atlanta. It's just... it's like $28 for a Philly cheesesteak, so I've only been to each twice. edit: ok it's $16 each apparently, but still But also, they own physical chains, real estate ("food halls" aka bougie food courts) and now... meal delivery? It sounds like the most expensive-to-operate things all squashed…
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How were they selling a dollar for 80 cents? The actual food is more expensive on grubhub than ordering through the restaurant, and then there are multiple fees on top of that.
Tons of marketing/advertising. The free GrubHub+ subscription through prime probably burned through a lot of cash. I doubt Amazon was paying them very much (if anything) to Grubhub. Then you have all of the corporate staff (around 3k based on google search) who are highly paid.
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How were they selling a dollar for 80 cents? The actual food is more expensive on grubhub than ordering through the restaurant, and then there are multiple fees on top of that.
But there is the cost of hosting, developers, drivers, etc. And that's all cost that is not borne by the restaurant. And there is a limit to how much people would pay to get something delivered. So they're probably pricing the delivery, etc less than they've actually paid.
Ghost kitchens are the biggest scam in the food delivery world. why would anyone pay for an unsanitary kitchen to fry them up some frozen food?
My buddy ordered from a spot called "Mega Quesadilla" and was raving about it. Turns out the ghost kitchen was just an IHOP making quesadillas.
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> Given a per-share price how do you know the per-share price
> how do you know the per-share price Same way you do for a public company. From trades and valuations. Private shares exchange hands in private transactions as well as almost every time the company raises money. If a company issues incentive stock options, they're required to calculate a 409A price, which while a bullshit number, is indeed a per-share price. Corporations, by law, have shares.
how do you know what trades took place, and how many shares were traded, and at what price?
Those weird ghost kitchen things have more than half a billion dollars to spend on acquisitions?! I wonder how this came to be - did they already have that big of a war chest, or did they hear they could buy a name brand and go back to their investors to finance it?
I’ll look up the addresses of restaurants on Uber Eats, using street view, before ordering. Most of them are at bodegas or otherwise non-restaurant spaces.
Those weird ghost kitchen things have more than half a billion dollars to spend on acquisitions?! I wonder how this came to be - did they already have that big of a war chest, or did they hear they could buy a name brand and go back to their investors to finance it?
This part feels like The Onion. 30 private taxis coordinating for your meal. "customers can order from upwards of 30 restaurants in a single order, with each item being made-to-order in a sequenced fashion so that they finish simultaneously and can be delivered to the customer together."
This idea was tried years ago (they'd claim to be the first) by a company based out of Indianapolis named Clustertruck (https://www.clustertruck.com/); though their branding was more "one restaurant, 30 food truck brands". The aim was: you can order a bunch of stuff, the software in the kitchens times it to all come out at the same time, and ETAs the driver to pick it up for delivery.
The company is still around but isn't all that successful. They split the software portion into a second company, closed down a bunch of kitchens, raised prices, etc. I think the reality that hit them was: It really doesn't matter all that much that you can order tacos and pasta all in one order, except for large parties but that's an uncommon situation. The genre of food matters less than the specific food being ordered (e.g. I don't just want a burger, i want a five guys burger). Additionally, the food might have usually been delivered at a higher quality than a typical Uber Eats/etc delivery, but that's still a distance away from restaurant quality; but the prices were obviously higher than eating at a restaurant.
Uber Eats/etc are barely successful, and the only reason they can find that success is because they don't have to manage all the typically lossy parts of food delivery (restaurants & the drivers). Gig apps are good businesses because they avoid this vertical integration: No depreciating assets, little real estate, low competition, no worry about managing minimum wage workers, no health inspections, no stoves breaking down, just some software engineers and marketing (I'm simplifying but you get my gist). Why anyone would think vertically integrating something involving a restaurant is a good idea is, well, crazy. Even ghost kitchens on the typical range of delivery apps are stupid; oh sure your startup is one of the most classically unprofitable kinds of businesses on the planet, I bet that'll survive when interest rates rise.