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Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

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Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#31

I've ordered food from Chipotle online, taken 30-40 minutes to get to the store, and very often it would have been more convenient (I would have gotten my food more quickly) if I had skipped the online order and waited in the in-person line instead. This doesn't always happen and it depends on a ton of things (store, time/shift, crew working at the time) but it got to the point where I couldn't reliably get the food…

If a restaurant is deliveries only (or primarily) like Dominos then I will order for delivery. I'll never order delivery from a place with a dining room. It just doesn't work. It will take the best part of an hour at minimum, the food will be cold/soggy/crushed when you get it, and you'll have to pay delivery fees. I learned this lesson way back in the 1980s when a McDonald's here tried to partner with a delivery sta…

IMO pickup works fine. You can show up a little early for your food so you can pick it up as soon as it's cooked and you know how to get home quicker than a random delivery driver.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#32
I'm not familiar with the various dishes that were tested. Are any of them dishes that lose mass over time? When I cook rice I've noticed that it weighs quite a bit more shortly after it comes out of the rice cooker than it does a half hour later.

In the article they were weighing at their office. For an in-person order the time between the food being made and the weighing would be the time to get back from the restaurant to the office.

For a delivery order the time from being made to the weighing would be the time it takes the delivery driver to pick up the order plus the time it takes them to get to your office and deliver it.

Unless the driver is already waiting at the restaurant when the food is done, and doesn't wait for other orders to finish too so as to take them at the same time, and yours is the first or only order to be delivered on that run your delivery food on average is going to have been out of the kitchen longer than your in-person ordered food.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#33
post #8

Hey, for Chipotle, I've had the exact opposite experience. Order online with their app, and the order is always bursting at the seams. Order in person, and it's meh. Plus the line! Order through like Favor / Uber, and it's like, "Why did I do this?" Curious how worker training factors in, or if it's just, "Oh we had more time so we made a better order..." Or, "Oh, we had the data in our own system that prints slips w…

My theory is if the manager is not near the line at the time when you order, you get bigger scoops.

I've actually had a manager look at my food at Chipotle and tell the server to increase the amount of food.

The closest Chipotle to me went online-only during Covid lockdown and it must have worked out well since they no longer allow in-person orders. Most people either get it delivered or use the drive-through to pickup. They don't even have a cash register anymore.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#34
post #6

This is a sample size of exactly two salads from one location. Which employee makes the salad probably has more to do with it than if it was delivery or in-person. Do a real study and get back to me.

a true scientist would read the whole article

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#36
post #6

This is a sample size of exactly two salads from one location. Which employee makes the salad probably has more to do with it than if it was delivery or in-person. Do a real study and get back to me.

My experience is you usually pay more at least. Sometimes restaurants add a dollar to every item flat out on grubhub versus their actual takeout menu. Sometimes they charge another 4% for not paying in cash. Sometimes they do both of these things.

FWIW it's not necessarily the restaurant trying to upcharge you. The delivery apps will often take a percentage of the food costs in addition to their separate fees, so restaurants will have to raise the cost of each item by the same amount to make the same profits as an off-app togo order.

Berkeley and a few other cities capped the amount an app can take out of the restaurant's food costs, which is why you'll see extra fees when you order there. The delivery app is now taking their cut directly from the user instead of from the restaurant without the user knowing.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#37
post #32

I'm not familiar with the various dishes that were tested. Are any of them dishes that lose mass over time? When I cook rice I've noticed that it weighs quite a bit more shortly after it comes out of the rice cooker than it does a half hour later. In the article they were weighing at their office. For an in-person order the time between the food being made and the weighing would be the time to get back from the resta…

If food is sealed or covered, the loss of water should not be significant. What other ways are there for food to lose mass?

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#38
post #11

Title needs to be changed to Here’s How Much Sweetgreen Rips You Off You When You Order Online (with data) since Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows is both not the original article title and misleading since the article only examines a single restaurant.

I thought the original title meant that people are less likely to order excess food when ordering online. Still an interesting article, but not what I was expecting.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#39

They ought to give you more, to make up for when the delivery agents invariably mess things up. At least Deliveroo UK finally relented to give delivery failures back as a refund rather than their old position which was effectively: "Oops, we messed up leaving you without a portion of your meal... Please can we keep your hard-earned cash as a credit, so that you can only use it by spending more money with us". Has any…

I always tip $5 for a single meal and $10 for a meal for two. These delivery folks clearly don't pull in a lot of money, so if you are privileged enough to be able to afford takeout, you can also throw down a tip.

Re: Do you get less food when you order online? That's what the data shows

#40
post #6

This is a sample size of exactly two salads from one location. Which employee makes the salad probably has more to do with it than if it was delivery or in-person. Do a real study and get back to me.

If you're unwilling or unable to fully read a Medium article, I suspect that a "real study" would be even less helpful to you.
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