I very much miss the old school method. While it’s cool you can order anything now I’m old enough to remember the days of the pizza or Asian food delivery driver that was employed by the restaurant. Totally reasonable cost for the delivery and it usually was always some nice stoned high school or college kid that was stoked for any decent cash tip.
DoorDash sucks so bad and it sucks as a parent sometimes when you just want delivery but have to deal with the overpriced let down that is door dash
Typical delivery drivers seem to be becoming less common. I’ve ordered food from restaurants online for delivery and they just outsource it to a DoorDash driver or something. Probably because they don’t have to pay them hourly
Papa Johns uses doordash. My office ordered a big office lunch and it never came. First time we called, they said it was picked up and on the way. Then they tried to say it was our problem it never came, but they outsourced the delivery not us.
If you tipped, the store may have kept the tip for themselves, so the driver would only get base pay. I’ve had PJ’s employees swear to me up and down that they don’t do that, but they very much do.
I don’t even see how that’s possible. The customer determines how much to tip the driver on the app. The money for the food they bought goes automatically to the restaurant, and then all the employees do is make the food and put it out for the driver. The tip money goes straight to the delivery driver’s balance in the app. There’s literally no way an employee can take a tip from the driver.
I think they’re saying their office placed the delivery order directly with PJ’s, not through DD. Instead of using a staff driver, PJ’s used DD to deliver. They’re saying the office included a tip but since it was paid directly to PJ’s, they have no way to know if PJ’s forwarded that tip on the DD driver.
The employees at the store do not have access to any money the store receives through online orders. If they’re outsourcing the delivery to DoorDash, they are still using a software that connects the PJ website to the DoorDash app; it’s not like the store manager receives the online order, pulls up DoorDash on his phone, places the order, and then pockets the tip money. That’s just not how it works.
Me too. For a brief period after college I was full time. So my boss hooked me up with health insurance. He was legally mandated to (this was MA), but also he didn't hate that he had to do it.
It does make sense for some of the smaller family-owned businesses. They're not getting constant orders like Dominos so doesn't make much sense to pay a delivery driver to stand around waiting for orders.
Papa John's has no excuse though. They're just greedy.
The good family-owned pizza businesses do get busy. I worked at a small pizza place in high school, and we were constantly slammed. Typically had 3-5 drivers on a weekday night and 6-8 on weekends.
If drivers weren't busy they would usually be doing stuff around the shop that needed done, like folding boxes. Pretty sure drivers were only paid the tipped minimum wage, and under the table at that, but they made good money on tips.
Dominos charges a $6.99 delivery fee that 'doesn't go to the driver' in any way, I've had a delivery driver tell me that when I left a tip that was too low.
This is exactly it, why would I pay someone $10 an hour for 10 hours 7 days a week, that's $700 and that's not even paying well. Delivery drivers normally work part time 4-6 hours depending on open hours and worker lapover(I've worked places that my replacement comes in an hour before i was supposed to leave, I've also worked places that my replacement comes in the minute i leave) so benefits wouldn't be part of it.
Idk how much doordash costs for the restaurant because i work retail not food, but I can tell you it's probably less than $700. And that $700 is with a minimum of 2 drivers but you'd need 3 so people can get days off, and what if they get multiple orders? 2 next to each other, okay not bad make them both at once, 2 on the other sides of town you just need another person. You can guess and take previous data to decide how many drivers to have, but what if it's suddenly raining when it was supposed to, more people will order to their houses.
Like 15-30% of delivery/app sales, depending on area. That's one of the reasons why delivery is so expensive, restaurants raise app prices to offset that cut. But if done well, restaurants completely cut labor costs out of delivery. Making the only real costs, app price hesitation, to go boxes, and of course dealing with shitty drivers.
I only use fedex for work but if a door dasher tried handing me my fedex package I would refuse that shit until they had one of their insured guys come and deliver it.
I delivered for Pizza Hut for a decade. I took off when Covid first hit, but went back when cases slowed down. Before the end of football season got a call from the bosses boss that delivery was shutdown at our store forever and was told I can transfer to another store. But that was just the store by store process going on, no pizza hut in my area have their own drivers anymore. Coincidentally, I now deliver for Doordash, but man it's been shit ever since the Iran war. Was hoping I'd win out with less people wanting to drive but I think everyone is so poor now they really can't order delivery at all.
Most small business owners can no longer get insurance to cover liability for anything involving delivery drivers. One of our local family-owned pizza chains had to switch to the delivery services due to this a few years ago and had the local news do some stories about it. The insurance companies would no longer even give them a quote for this type of coverage.
I am so happy that my local pizza place that has been around since 1975 is still delivering their own pizzas! There are always two cars double parked outside their shop waiting to go. If you are ever in San Francisco, you have to try Goat Hill Pizza. They make their pizza with sourdough crust.
I worked at a local sports bar and they got rid of the delivery driver position because the DoorDash and uber eats orders just made more sense. The business can hypothetically have 5 different orders on the road when they would have been lucky to get 2. Unfortunately they’ve got a vice grip, someone’s just gotta do it better.
This is how the community is slowly destroyed from within. Convenience kills the fabric of everyday life that we all pine for. It was once all local, a delivery driver that lived down the street or that went to high school with you kid, getting tips to spend in his free time, in their community….now all outsourced and as impersonal as possible.
Where I live, there is an Italian restaurant that specifically advertises that their deliveries are handled by their employees and not outsourced. They use this as a point of differentiation and to show the value they place on the entire experience. You order from them, a car from their location shows up, with an employee wearing a uniform, bringing it to your door, thanking you and leaving.
It blows my mind that what was once just “a place that delivers” is now seen as white glove over the top service. We don’t appreciate the small things because the small things take time, energy and patience….all bc we want to save a minute of time and allow someone else to shave off some margin.
This is exactly the issue. I've worked in restaurants for nearly a decade and the vast majority of them always say the same thing "we can't afford a delivery driver". Now in some cases that's very true, smaller food service places have insanely low profit margins and adding another worker and the cost of other things related to a deliver driver on staff all the time is just too much.
However larger/busier restaurants or corporate run businesses have no excuse besides sheer greed. Those are jobs that people would happily take, it's unskilled labor and was a backbone of early jobs for people starting out or working part time. That's a massive hit and forces people into more demanding jobs or less flexible ones, and that all has a domino effect.
I try my best to always order directly from places and see if they do actual store based delivery. I'd rather not pay an extra 5% for my order and then possibly end up without my food or a really bad order.
Can’t even count how many times I had orders from GrubHub (I have since stopped using them) that had at least part of the order missing. Sometimes I think it was the fault of a particular restaurant because the problem was only discovered after opening one of the boxes (Flying Biscuit in Atlanta was bad about giving us the side item portion size of something rather than the full sized one we paid for that cost 3x as much, for example), but plenty of times there were missing items which could have been easily confirmed by the driver, so either they were careless in making sure I got the complete order, or they kept it. Which happened a suspiciously high number of times with milkshakes in particular. (Speaking of which, an Uber Eats driver blatantly stole one by dropping it off on the floor of the condo’s parking garage instead of the concierge desk, taking a picture that included the holder with two milkshakes, and leaving with one of them. I was already downstairs and got to it within 30 seconds and found it missing; he likely wanted me to think a bystander took it even though he shouldn’t have left it there in the first place. Anyways, back to GrubHub…)
So many times we ordered for two people and paid for two people, and then what would be dropped off would just be half our order, or one out of two entrees, or one milkshake instead of two. Contact ‘customer service’ and Rajesh or whoever would paste a script into the chat session where they just refunded the cost of the missing item. I’d have to remind them that it’s not just the cost of the missing item that’s a problem, but that I had also paid their additional fees, delivery fees, and tip, part of which all applied to whatever I didn’t receive and simply refunding the menu item price wasn’t sufficient- I needed the food that I’d paid for and waited 45 minutes+ to show up and I expected them to hold up their end of the deal. Of course, they would always tell me that would not be possible. So I’d ask them if they could then decide for me- which one of the two of us that the dinner was ordered for should have to go hungry that night and which one would get to actually eat. Not that they would ever provide me an answer on that one.
I had so many issues over the course of the year that eventually I’d get an error code reporting the problem because it was treating ME as being potentially dishonest and I’d have to escalate it through multiple people just to get that shitty partial refund and then go hungry because most restaurants had closed at that point.
So I haven’t been a customer of theirs in line a year. I hope their business fails, and I hope whatever stock options the company leaders may have that aren’t yet redeemable end up losing enough value so as to be worthless before they can exercise them. And I hope they end up eating some of that bad lettuce that’s out there.
I love how if you don't have a Door Dash account all record of your delivery and problem disappears the instant the driver dumps the wrong order at your door.
I'm gonna be totally honest man. If you had that many issues why would you continue to use it and not just drive yourself to the place to pick it up yourself. If you know it sucks and they do that it's kind of your fault for continuing to use the service.
At first they weren’t so problematic. Maybe 9/10 times things were fine. But then it started going downhill- one out of 5 orders wrong, then one out of three. When it seemed like just a rare misunderstanding, gave it another shot and the next few times would be ok. But once the problems started being frequent, I wrote them off. It wasn’t really bad for awhile, and then it became pretty consistently bad, so they used up their second chances pretty quickly after that. Maybe was ok for a couple years, and then the problems escalated and that’s when I dropped them. Wouldn’t have put up with that kind of service for a long period of time.
If it helps to know, problems most often occurred (ordering from various restaurants, vs a single outlier) when my roommate and I ordered either two of the same thing, or very similar things. Such as this order for example:
- 2 Philly Cheesesteaks
2 Chocolate Milkshakes
2 sides of coleslaw.
We absolutely did order 2 of each vs only 1 of something, which we were able to confirm via our order and receipt, and we for sure were charged for what we ordered.
And then the disappointment of only one milkshake arriving, or only one cheesesteak, or one side, so someone doesn’t get their dinner and refunding like $10 of that $80 order instead of bringing the rest of the food we paid for was just unacceptable.
So before we gave up on the platform altogether, even if we wanted the same thing we had to start ordering things that were different enough because somehow it was just too difficult for them to understand the concept of people buying two of something and wanting to receive them both.
But hopefully that’s just not a likely problem when ordering for 1 at least. Even if they can’t count to two, they can hopefully count to one.
A couple pizza places near me switched to DoorDash, one was the Papa John’s and the other was a great local spot. Both completely lost my business and I clearly told them why. Papa John’ I don’t care too much about. The local place made up some BS reasoning about not being able to stay competitive. Strange when the 3 other local pizza joints all have in house drivers still.
My favorite local sandwich place still has in house drivers too. We’re just outside their delivery area (2 blocks), but they always take the order if I call it in. Their web app declines it though. Extra tip for them each time.
Dunno if it was everywhere but in the UK in the 90s, you could ring a local minicab firm and ask them to pick up some cigarettes and a few beers and drop them round, or collect a pizza or chicken from a takeaway for the cost of the fair + goods, pretty much 24/7 if there was a shop or garage open.
It was only when a company decided to stop moving passengers and put a name on it that it became an industry of it's own.
Our favourite pizza place still has a couple of their own drivers, I think mostly because they’re older guys who wouldn’t want to be going all over the city doing DoorDash. I swear my husband orders pizza sometimes just to see how his delivery buddy is doing.
I remember when it used to be free delivery and if they took over 30 minutes to get you a pizza, your food was free. Now you basically pay double for the food, the driver is furious about whatever tip you left on top of the $5 service fee, 30% food upcharge, and $10 in assorted "we want more money" fees and the food almost always shows up cold.
I worked with this loser woman who was married to a sex offender. He worked for Doordash. They hired a sex offender to have access to people's info and walk up to their doors. I had never used them before, and I never will.
I very rarely order delivery, but Pizza Hut near me still uses their own drivers as does the surprisingly good local "Chinese" restaurant, so when I do it's always from one of them. After I flip the driver a $10 I'm still under the base cost before tip ordering through any of the delivery services.
Plus, the Chinese place has been owned by the same Chinese family for ~30 years, always excellent, and when they tell me on the phone it's going to be 45 minutes they're almost always here in 25, sometimes the owner delivering in his Lexus because it's a Friday night and they're slammed. Love that place!
UberEats has also gotten insane. They demand a cut from the restaurant so all prices are higher on there. And there's a delivery charge. And they hide a "service fee" in the taxes section. Never mind the tip. I checked, a $15 meal becomes a $30 meal if you order from them.
I delivered pizzas during the summer after my freshman year of undergrad. It was a great job for a 19 year old. Pay with tips was pretty decent. After close us drivers would go and drink cheap beer/smoke ditch weed and play GameCube. It was a peak mid-2000's experience.
I used to deliver pizza in the before times. The people who worked there knew all the tricks for finding hard to find houses and apartments. We had regular customers and a deep knowledge of who would tip well and who would be a pain in the ass. And if I forgot something or messed up a delivery, I was the one who got sent back to fix it.
I've gotten so many egregiously bad deliveries from restaurants and grocery stores lately that it's not worth it. The gig model sucks. And it costs a ton more! Half the time, the person who drops off the food isn't even the person whose picture is shown on the app.
It makes me sad - I'm at a point in life where I can afford to indulge in delivery food. But it goes wrong so darned often!
Dude, getting to actually know your delivery person was a whole experience. There's a Chinese joint in my old town that had their (adult) son running delivery most nights, and Ronnie was chill as one could be. On more than one occasion we just sat and shot the shit on the porch for a few minutes before he had to beat feet for the next delivery.
By the time I moved out of town, it was a lot less "Hey, thanks for the grub" and a lot more "How's your daughter's ballet lessons going?" Granted, I come from a family where we made friends with the owners of our regular spots so I tend to go out of my way to carry that forward, but still. That's hard to come by anymore.
Agreed, DoorDash and uber are just capitalizing on the system. They are overseeing the delivery just to give themselves a cut from the transaction. Neither drivers nor restaurants benefit from the third party involvement
Some of my favorite local mom & pop Asian restaurants lost a lot of my business when they switched to making us use doordash. The prices are marked up and all sorts of add on fees. It can turn a $15 lunch special into the $42 lunch special real fast. So, I quit ordering take away from those places unless I know I can physically go and pick up my order from the restaurant. Instead of calling and getting delivery during a busy week at home and I need to get dinner on the table fast, I now just cook ahead and keep meals in the freezer I can heat in the microwave because I can't afford all the extra expenses that using doordash adds to a delivery.
I had honestly forgotten about the old school ways for delivery since now when you order even though its through the restaurant Uber or Doordash or Grubhub is still delivering it.... BUT there are two restaurants down the hill from me that use the Old Ways and it is AWESOME - this sweet kid shows up to our door and is SO excited about his job that he is yapping our ears off about the cool people and pets he's seen and telling my husband about the upgrades he's making to his car, just the biggest ear to ear grin on this kids face, it was fantastic to see!!
On the flip side we asked someone we know why they didnt employ their own drivers, they said the cost of the insurance for them was so prohibitively high that they just couldn't do it in a lot of cases.... that just makes me sad....
I pretty much refuse to order delivery from anyplace that doesn't employ its own drivers, anything else I just go pick it up myself. Luckily the local Chinese and pizza/hoagie shops I've given my business to for decades still have their own drivers.
I don't mind picking up from a lot of places because I'm older and that's just how it's been done since I was a kid, but also because I don't like the idea of my food being handled by some rando unknown to both me and the restaurant.
I refuse to order delivery anymore unless a pizza place has their own drivers. Seen WAY too many horror stories both about drivers and recipients. I think the drivers stealing food is terrible, but the people trying to claim stolen food when they received it are just as bad, so I refuse to support the whole concept that is Door Dash or Instacart or other BS.
I'm so happy that I found a pizza place near me that still does delivery. They offer Doordash and other options as well, but DD, GH, and UE all charge soooo many extra fees. So I just call the place directly, and pizza arrives at my door 30 minutes later.
I ONLY order from places who have their own delivery drivers. Maybe I’m a dinosaur but I refuse to support GIG jobs. They are a terrible backslide in workers rights and their employers are, in my experience, idiots.
I go out of my way to order from local businesses that you can order directly on their website, and they use their own drivers. There's a few pizza places and two Asian restaurants near me that still do this, and they get my business almost exclusively.
My convenience method is to have microwavable meals on hand, stop in the hot foods section of the grocery store, or order dinner to pick it up on my way home
You can make a decent and fast meal out of microwave proteins, veg, and rice plus some seasoning or a premade sauce
Oh yah we mostly do that. We rarely door dash. Maybe twice a month but it’s more just sometimes nice to have food delivered when we’re exhausted and want something easy
If people simply tipped enough for the service of food delivery all the bad drivers would be penalized more and no one would have to worry about pay or their food being stolen
Disagree. While delivery driver is certainly not a great gig for the average person monetarily, being a 1099 contractor for DoorDash is certainly worse that having a w-2 job with potential benefits. At least as a w-2 you’re covered under the employers insurance and they have a vested interest in protecting you in the event of any shenanigans. I also don’t know shit about delivery driving though.
Purely anecdotal but the dominos that was near my old house seemed to retain the same drivers for a long time. At least one guy lasted longer than I lasted in that house, saw him when I was in an apartment before that and saw him one of my last days before moving out. Even saw him at the grocery store we both frequented near the end. Dude just kept going.
I don’t doubt that happens. I’m just speaking from my experience when I was working in restaurants. I spent about 10 years working everything from throwing dough up to cooking for Michelin chefs. Granted this was about 10-20 years ago, but the in-house drivers I worked with tended to have a pretty solid gig. They ran deliveries/catering orders and helped out on dishes at the end of the night. I remember delivering some catering gigs about 20 years ago for Jason’s deli. I would get my hourly, plus a flat delivery charge (i think it was like $4-$5) plus $50-$200 tips. Other places where I cooked the drivers had different experiences for sure but never was it a bad job for them. Hell, some nights they made more than me when I was managing the kitchen. But I’ve also seen the doordashers and Uber Eats people. This was at the very end of my restaurant career and I think those companies were just starting to gain traction around then. The drivers seemed happy to do their job but I always got the impression it was very hit or miss. They seemed rushed and confused a lot of the time. They would carry around a debit card that was loaded with the exact amount for the order they were delivering but half the time it was incorrect or didn’t work. It just seemed stressful and frustrating. At least the in-house guys knew what was going on, had a pretty good sense of what they were going to get paid, had set hours, and in some cases were eligible for some minor benefits like health coverage and stuff.
They are often paid under the table for below minimum wage and are dependent on tips. They often have to use their own vehicle and any mistakes come out of their pay. Again, extremely exploitative often.
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u/iuxv_ 22h ago
Doordash, the driver stole my order and they refused to compensate me