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People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

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Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#121

Post by mikysco »

noelsusman wrote: post #106
MattGaiser wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The due diligence is because the restaurants offer a terrible experience. Most still do not have an independent online ordering function. They want me to call. Most still haven't set up meaningful profiles on Yelp and other review sites. So I would need to root around to find contact information. That is in addition to needing to give my credit card over the phone, not knowing how long the order will take, and needin…

I've had a pretty great experience calling restaurants to place orders. I talk to a human, tell them my order, they repeat it back to me, and tell me it will be X dollars and ready at Y o'clock. I show up at the specified time and the order is ready to go. A couple times I had to wait 5 minutes because they were inundated and couldn't keep up. No stupid app to download. No account to create. No bullshit fees. No mark…

Yes! I don’t know why there’s so much apprehension about calling the restaurant. So often I learn more about the dish I’m ordering - does it come with X ingredient yes/no, should I order Y add-on, is rice extra. Simple questions usually omitted from online menus. Makes the experience just a tiny bit more human and that’s honestly enough for me

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#122

Post by 40four »

noelsusman wrote: post #106
MattGaiser wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The due diligence is because the restaurants offer a terrible experience. Most still do not have an independent online ordering function. They want me to call. Most still haven't set up meaningful profiles on Yelp and other review sites. So I would need to root around to find contact information. That is in addition to needing to give my credit card over the phone, not knowing how long the order will take, and needin…

I've had a pretty great experience calling restaurants to place orders. I talk to a human, tell them my order, they repeat it back to me, and tell me it will be X dollars and ready at Y o'clock. I show up at the specified time and the order is ready to go. A couple times I had to wait 5 minutes because they were inundated and couldn't keep up. No stupid app to download. No account to create. No bullshit fees. No mark…

I agree 100% with you. I think the expectations of the parent comment are very misplaced.

Restaurant owners are usually not tech people, nor can many of them afford to hire tech people. To expect all restaurants to pay exorbitant amounts of money setup/ maintain online ordering systems is not realistic.

Also, I have never had a restaurant ask me for a card over the phone. Order times are a rough guess based on current traffic, no matter over the phone or an app. And 9 times out of 10 the server repeats your order before hanging up. If they don’t, it is easy to ask them to.

To be fair, I have been surprised many times how difficult it can be to find an online menu for places I like in my area. Lots of places might not even have a website, but in these cases, I actually use GrubHub and the like to read the menus only. I never order through them.

Here is an easy way to beat these broken GrubHub shenanigans. Find an online menu, or use GrubHub only to read the menu menu if need be. Find the real phone number on Google maps. Place your order over the phone. Pick it up yourself and save tons of money on fees (and now apparently save the restaurant from getting screwed too). Make sure to pick up a paper menu on your way out for next time :)

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#123

Post by wl »

noelsusman wrote: post #106
MattGaiser wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The due diligence is because the restaurants offer a terrible experience. Most still do not have an independent online ordering function. They want me to call. Most still haven't set up meaningful profiles on Yelp and other review sites. So I would need to root around to find contact information. That is in addition to needing to give my credit card over the phone, not knowing how long the order will take, and needin…

I've had a pretty great experience calling restaurants to place orders. I talk to a human, tell them my order, they repeat it back to me, and tell me it will be X dollars and ready at Y o'clock. I show up at the specified time and the order is ready to go. A couple times I had to wait 5 minutes because they were inundated and couldn't keep up. No stupid app to download. No account to create. No bullshit fees. No mark…

I've had far too many orders get screwed up over the phone, even when I've had them read back to me. Also, you still have to deal with physical payment when you pick the order up.

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#125

Post by rahimnathwani »

abhiyerra wrote: post #6
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #2

Every article I read about restaurants just seems to reinforce that they are powered by their owners hopes and dreams rather than any financial or business literacy. It makes then ripe targets for exploitation.

Restaurants and mom and pop grocery stores/convenience stores are very low margin, super long hours, and stressful. Furthermore, it isn’t just places like Grubhub but also local governments with weird zoning laws and expectations that really exploit these businesses with random fees. (My parents had a grocery store. They lost it during the previous recession.)

Restaurants and grocery/convenience stores are a bit different. Yes, owners of both are signing up for long hours and poor pay. But the motivation is often different:

- if you buy or start a grocery store, you know you're buying yourself a job; you won't get rich, but you will make more money than you would working for someone else, e.g. if your options are limited due to discrimination, lack of fluency with local language, literacy etc.

- if you open a restaurant, you might me doing it for all the same reasons as above (think an undifferentiated Chinese restaurants, or a local pizza place). But many people open restaurants because they are into food, because they think the way they make food is better than existing restaurants, and because they think the margins are going to make the restaurant ultra-profitable.

(My parents also had a grocery store.)

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#126

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #95
MattGaiser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case the owner is then getting the full price for the food though.

Except now grubhub et all basically controls their web presence through vastly superior SEO, and if they don't agree to grubhub's terms, they basically disappear off the internet.

[deleted]

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#127

Post by ehnto »

MattGaiser wrote: post #19
MaintenanceMode wrote: post #4

It's disheartening that there's so much due diligence required just to conduct the most basic transactions right now. I have a narrow list of vetted restaurants, where I understand the costs and to the business, the delivery model, the safety (food handling and Covid precautions), and I only take out from these particular places. I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub, even though…

The due diligence is because the restaurants offer a terrible experience. Most still do not have an independent online ordering function. They want me to call. Most still haven't set up meaningful profiles on Yelp and other review sites. So I would need to root around to find contact information. That is in addition to needing to give my credit card over the phone, not knowing how long the order will take, and needin…

Why should they be required to set uo anything on Yelp or other aggregators? Yelp strong armed it's way into importance, they aren't a public service. I wish fewer restaurants would cave to their bullying.

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#128

Post by wruza »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #119
a_e_k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of information already saved, one of my favorite pizza places has my order history keyed to my phone number. Ordering ahead usually comes down to dialing them up, giving my name and phone number and telling them I'd like the same as last time. They read it off to me to confirm, quote me a waiting time, and that's that. Start to finish, the call is probably less than thirty seconds.

It's strange that they have to ask for those details. I wonder what software they use and why it doesn't look up the customer record based on caller ID, as soon as the phone starts ringing.

Because it’s a phone and a software, and these are two separate tools?

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#129

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

MaintenanceMode wrote: post #4

It's disheartening that there's so much due diligence required just to conduct the most basic transactions right now. I have a narrow list of vetted restaurants, where I understand the costs and to the business, the delivery model, the safety (food handling and Covid precautions), and I only take out from these particular places. I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub, even though…

How can GrubHub represent themselves as a restaurant seemingly without the restaurant's permission? Isn't this a trademark violation?

Re: People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

#130

Post by TuringNYC »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #129
MaintenanceMode wrote: post #4

It's disheartening that there's so much due diligence required just to conduct the most basic transactions right now. I have a narrow list of vetted restaurants, where I understand the costs and to the business, the delivery model, the safety (food handling and Covid precautions), and I only take out from these particular places. I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub, even though…

How can GrubHub represent themselves as a restaurant seemingly without the restaurant's permission? Isn't this a trademark violation?

This is an established long-standing tactic at Hotels.com as well-- you call what you think is the hotel based on a web search. The person on the line pretends to work for the hotel. They will even play along and say "oh no discounts are available this week" or "no I dont see any AAA discounts / corporate discounts"

The entire time -- they are trying to book you full price. The hotel loses, because they cannot give you discounts -- they either get the sale or lose it alltogether.

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