
Philly Restaurants Revolt over Unauthorized Food Delivery “Partnerships” - damontal
https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2020/01/20/unauthorized-delivery-partnerships-philadelphia/
======
kazinator
> _At Baology, which partners exclusively with the delivery service Caviar,
> owner Judy Ni says the restaurant has struggled with being listed on
> Doordash and Grubhub._

So you'd think Judy would have her web people make this loud and clear on the
website: [https://www.baology.com/menu](https://www.baology.com/menu)

While it is clear that for delivery, it partners with Caviar (and no other
option), maybe there should be some decently visible blurb about that
partnership being exclusive, and _not_ being involved in any manner with
Doordash and Grubhub, or any provider besides Caviar.

> _Sate Kampar takes to-go orders over the phone, regularly — but unknowingly
> — accepting Doordash orders that way. When the couriers arrive to pick up
> the orders and the restaurant’s listed menu prices turn out to be higher
> than those listed on Doordash, guests refuse to pay the correct charge. This
> means lost money for Sate Kampar, as well as wasted time and angry
> customers._

That's pretty crummy behavior! What can you try to do is is ask callers
whether they are delivery agents. Also, monitor caller ID and keep a list.
Always quote the correct price to whoever is calling, whether it's the
consumer or a delivery agent. If there is reasonable suspicion that the person
on the other end is an agent, insist on pre-payment with credit card before
preparing the meal.

~~~
ISL
I'm not sure I understand yet:

1) Restaurant takes order over the phone (and may quote the total price to the
ordering party).

2) Restaurant makes food.

3) Courier arrives to deliver food.

4) Courier pays restaurant for food.

5) Courier delivers food to customer.

If there is a mispricing problem, shouldn't that get solved in Step 4, where
the restaurant doesn't give the courier the food until they are made whole?

~~~
patrickyeon
It sounds like, in one case:

1) Doordash takes order on their site

2) Courier shows up to pick it up

3) Order never got to the restaurant, customer is confused, customer blames
restaurant.

In the phone example:

1) Doordash connects the customer to the restaurant

2) Customer tries to place an order based on outdated info

3) Restaurant is now trying to convince the customer that the menu they are
looking at is wrong. And restaurant looks like a fool because they can't even
publish a menu.

In both of these cases, Doordash is damaging the restaurant (at least their
reputation and wasting their time) and doesn't sound like they're making any
good-faith effort to be a good actor here.

Also, in your example, if it gets to food being made and then an argument
about price, what happens to the restaurant if someone refuses to pay? They
don't really get to put that cooked meal into a fridge and wait for someone
else to order it. It's garbage (straight up lost money) now.

~~~
ISL
Agreed that in all cases Doordash damages the restaurant, but in your first
case, and in my example, Doordash is damaged even more (the restaurant will
have to eat the loss in the short-term, but they have a VC-backed company they
can sue for order-and-run+damages, perhaps in a class-action, if they don't
get paid). After a platform-driven screw-up or two, it is hard to see a
customer using Doordash ever again.

Your second example, however, damages primarily the restaurant, as the
customer has attempted to disintermediate Doordash, but is doing so with
incorrect information. The restaurant's best defense here may be
communication, informing the buyer of the price, and correcting
misconceptions, at the time of ordering.

As quipped eloquently in another thread here, "Move fast and break other
people's things" may work in the short term, but lawsuits and grumpy
attorneys-general seem like they could catch up to a bad actor pretty quickly
when there is real money on the line.

~~~
patrickyeon
Does Doordash get damaged here? Or does the story become "all these other
restaurants work when I order from Doordash, except that this one screws it
up"? Because that's what people will assume.

Doordash has VC money to burn on this kind of garbage; restaurants in general
already have a tough business to make work. In my mind I know who should take
on the responsibility of getting this right.

------
majos
It seems like it shouldn’t be legal to misrepresent another business’ prices
like this. If it is legal, then what’s to prevent competitor x from
circulating fake ads with fake sales from competitor y, getting competitor y a
bunch of angry would-be customers, and then collecting the disgruntled
customers later?

Presumably there’s a general law preventing this. Is there?

~~~
staticautomatic
Closest I can think of is tortious interference. They're interfering with a
contract btw the restaurant and a third party, although the contract part
could be tricky.

~~~
chii
it's a verbal contract between the restaurant and the patron. I dont it'd be
that tricky to prove such a contract!

~~~
staticautomatic
A "meeting of the minds" is generally a required element of a contract, and
there obviously isn't one with respect to the price, even if that's because of
the interference itself. Nothing is simple in litigation.

------
a3n
Move fast and break other people's things.

~~~
yusef555
Love that.

------
blakesterz
One of the restaurant owners has an interesting quote:

" This is all going to blow up at some point, and customers are going to feel
really confused because these companies have been lying about the cost of
delivering food to them."

~~~
hug
This statement is _weird_ , though.

Like: I have a menu from the local pizza place stuck to my fridge with a
magnet. The prices on the menu are cheaper than on Uber Eats, and _so is cost
of delivery_. The only quote-unquote "problem" is I have to pick up a phone
and call my order in. (Sidenote: That turn of phrase is a touch odd, when in
order to use Uber Eats I'm going to, I dunno, pick up my phone?)

The point that I'm making really poorly is that I'm not confused about the
cost of delivering food, I'm confused as to, generally, what the fuck it is
that Uber Eats is doing and why. What value do they actually _add_ , and why
is that worth similar to or more than the actual cost of the raw ingredients
to make my food?!

Honestly, it's not likely to blow up as it's likely to just slowly deflate.
Doordash or grubhub or whatever (y'know, the ones that are somehow _even
shadier_ than Uber) will just cease to operate in your area. At least one
company (and honestly it doesn't matter which, because they'll be the de facto
standard for everyone to partner with at this point) will stay afloat per
region, though, because the idea of a centralised 'what the fuck do I want to
eat tonight' portal is just too enticing to too many people for every
restaurant to turn down.

The _real_ question I have about what happens if these places collapse is what
happens to the virtual restaurants on the platform...

~~~
rincebrain
Not having to place a phone call, possibly to someone who can't hear you very
well in a loud restaurant, is a value-add many people seem to like.

~~~
jghn
There was a local pizza shop which I quite liked. The problem was that every
time I’d call in an order it’d be a stressful affair and I was never sure they
actually understood what I wanted. Frequently they had not.

Online ordering made that a much more sane process.

Granted these days many places have their own online portal but I’d rather go
through a single portal instead of handing my credit card information to a
million dodgy sites

------
smelendez
I'm curious about the legalities here. They're not just delivering food at the
direction of a licensed restaurant. They're buying food from a restaurant and
selling it to somebody else.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
That's not what the article says. The delivery companies are representing that
the restaurants are on the platform, but charging the wrong price for the menu
items, and refusing to pay the difference when the order amount is
insufficient to cover the actual price.

~~~
p1necone
Surely this is a problem that fixes itself.

Unaffiliated delivery service advertises insufficient price, sends driver to
restaurant, driver arrives at restaurant, doesn't have enough money to pay for
food, either doesn't get food, or delivery service covers the difference. The
delivery service would need to fix their price listings pretty quickly or
they'd continuously lose money.

I don't think we should stop ad hoc delivery services like this, but they
should have to clearly advertise that that's what they are, not falsely claim
to be actually affiliated with the restaraunt.

Edit: I think these kinds of delivery services are valuable because of the
layer of abstraction between them and the food business that allows them to
deliver from _anywhere_ rather than just the businesses that sign up with the
service. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to pay for a proxy to drive to,
order and deliver for me.

If they are continually making this kind of pricing mistake, perhaps they
should be charged with harassment or something though.

~~~
alasdair_
It’s the restaurant that loses most of the money because it’s left with food
that it made to order but is not sold.

~~~
p1necone
But if that's happening then aren't these delivery services hemorrhaging
money? Is the problem that they have enough VC money to burn while unknowingly
making enough mistakes to hurt everyone else?

In a sane world this problem wouldn't be possible - no rational actors should
be ordering and then not paying for enough food to seriously hurt a business
because there isn't anything to gain from such behavior.

~~~
29083011397778
> no rational actors should be ordering and then not paying for enough food to
> seriously hurt a business

Who says it's one actor, instead of a town full of people trying once (or even
once every couple of months to see if the issue persists), and failing?

~~~
p1necone
The delivery company is one actor. They lose money every time this happens.

------
jghn
A restaurant near me has complained about this frequently. Since then I've
been noticing a lot of local spots appearing on my GrubHub list in a very
suspicious manner. I keep wondering if these are "real" listings or one of
these.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Call the restaurant and ask.

------
peteradio
So they list the wrong (lower) price for a restaurant who is not even
partnered with them. Then people order food through the app but end up
stiffing the restaurant due to the price discrepancy. So how can a restaurant
guard against this?

~~~
p1necone
Why can't the restaurant guard against this by just not giving food away until
the right price is paid?

~~~
colanderman
They've already made the food. Their immediate choice is to get less money
than the advertised price (small loss), or get no money (large loss). Given
that the latter choice may take much repeating to cause the delivery service
to stop their behavior, it's not too surprising that many would choose the
former.

------
catalogia
> _“Imagine traditional restaurant pricing,” Aranita explains. “30 percent
> labor, 30 percent food cost — not to mention all the other fees of running a
> restaurant. If 30 percent also goes to delivery, that can negate any profit.
> We have these services because we sell more food through them, obviously,
> but the system is such that profits through them are low.” The profits are
> so thin that Poi Dog no longer offers fresh ahi tuna or salmon poke on their
> catering and delivery menus._

Very interesting. I never considered that the economic dynamics of food
delivery might suppress the quality of restaurant food, but it seems obvious
in retrospect.

~~~
a3n
These delivery services are inserted middlemen. More friction.

~~~
m_ke
They're pimps.

------
jellicle
Slimy anticompetitive behavior from Doordash, Postmates, Grubhub, and whoever
else SHOULD be punished with extremely large fines from regulators.

It won't, because the USA doesn't do regulation any more, but it should.

------
travisoneill1
Can't figure out why they would do this. Seems like a no win situation.

~~~
wpietri
In the long term, perhaps. But all of these companies are burning VC money in
hopes of getting enough market share that they can dictate terms. Or at least
justify yet more VC investment. In the short term they are getting away with
quite a bit. E.g., once you take expenses and lost time into account, many
DoorDash workers are losing money: [https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-
drivers-make-an-av...](https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-drivers-make-
an-average-of-145-an-hour-analysis-finds/)

~~~
LeftHandPath
You're exactly right. It's even in the article:

> Postmates told the team at Hardena that the only way to change the prices
> would be to become a member, which meant accepting delivery orders and
> paying the company a percent of their profit. The listing is still live, and
> still reflects the 2001 menu prices. Grubhub, Doordash, and Postmates did
> not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(In this case "a percent of their profit" is actually 30% of each delivery
order's total _revenue_.)

------
Keverw
I wonder if these food delivery and ride sharing companies are even
sustainable. Then reports they use VC money to subsidize things. Also mailers
where you can get so much free credit too for the service.

Seems convenience though as a customer but sounds like some of these people
aren't even making that much money with all the waiting and stuff in between,
maintenance, increased insurance, fuel, etc and then some apps I don't think
it starts paying until you are there to pickup. Then again though truck
drivers aren't paid while waiting to load and unload, and flight attendants
aren't paid until the plane is in the air.

Plus I feel like they are taking short cuts, I don't think i'd want to publish
other peoples prices because they could change, items removed from the menu,
etc. I guess they scrap the website or send someone in to take notes of the
menu? I rather it be an agreement where businesses themselves opt-in and
update their menu and prices. Wonder how these apps handle things when stuff
is out of stock (ran out of wings, but has chicken tenders still) or the ice
cream machine happens to be broken? Just seems not as deeply integrated as I'd
hope. but even if businesses updated menus, with being on 3 apps and their own
site I'm sure something would be missed due to human error unless some sort of
API with a central UI to update everything. Plus some fast food places are
understaffed too, because some people rather work in another field other than
fast food or just don't work at all. Reports that less teenagers are working
in fast food too. Then I guess putting growth and stuff first is some business
models for these apps, grow fast and figure out things later when you are a
bigger company.

But even before internet ordering, businesses we're doing shady things too.
Like pizza delivery drivers are required to have commercial insurance, but
many don't so if found out and got in an accident, claim could be denied. Was
reading that happen to some teenager using the family car for a part time job,
and the state decided to take his license away because claim got denied and
wasn't able to pay out of his own pocket. Sounds like the employers mention
it, but don't really enforce what type of insurance you have. So many are
using personal insurance, some forums discus this and some pizza drivers said
they'd put their roof topper in the trunk before the police come if in an
accident. So sounds like faceless huge corporations are shifting their
liability to teenagers and other people just starting out and more vulnerable
people. Then ride sharing, the companies say you are covered by their million
dollar insurance policy but some people still have been dropped as result of
ride sharing... Do they even give you a insurance policy number or card?
Sounds like most people exchange their own insurance in that case or these
apps are misleading. Then some even report insurance company dropping them
just for asking about ride sharing insurance, even if they haven't signed up.

~~~
m_ke
> I wonder if these food delivery and ride sharing companies are even
> sustainable. Then reports they use VC money to subsidize things.

They're not, they're all following Thiel's 0 to 1 model and aiming for a
monopoly. Over the past 10 year VCs figured out that getting into capital
intensive markets where they can use their money to starve out the competition
is an easier way to make money than investing in sustainable businesses. They
get to raise insane rounds, throw a lot of money around and live off of the
management fees.

~~~
toss1
> I wonder if these food delivery and ride sharing companies are even
> sustainable. Then reports they use VC money to subsidize things.

>They're not, they're all following Thiel's 0 to 1 model and aiming for a
monopoly.

Not only trying to gain a monopoly via massive market manipulation, i.e.,
bonfire of VC capital to sustain dumping of underpriced product for years, but
also skimming & scamming as a business model for those years

The last decade is making a real mockery of the Vc investing model to create
value --many big ones are just trying to strip-mine the economy. Sure
taxis/limos needed a better app-based UI, and perhaps delivery apps are more
convenient, but this is not providing a new better service, it is simply
trying to steal from the restaurant's profits

