Theres a nice friction removal for the customer. One account, only typing your credit card number in once, a consistent place to make a complaint or get a refund.
Visa, Amazon, Apple, Google, or Paypal sort of provide that function, but being able to shop many restaurants with a single identity has its benefits. Something that wouldnt be fixed just by restaurants with nice websites.
One nice theory I've seen floated - which I believe has happened in some places - is for several local restaurants to split the cost of building & running a combined web store and/or app. If word gets around enough that this is a faster or cheaper overall experience, people will migrate. The only catch there is if the stores want to also continue taking GH/DD/UE orders, in which case the menus and branding might have to be different.
In the long run, I honestly think kitchen-only setups optimized for efficiency & food safety will grab a big share of the market. They can experiment with vertical integration, and avoid all the hassles & limitations of sit-down dining. They will be able to more, better, faster and cheaper. It might be hard to copy & paste the entire thing from one city to another, but the core functions should be quite portable.
It would be insane for restaurants to build their own platforms.
It would be crazy smart for someone to standardize an interface (e.g. REST API), let restaurants implement glue to their systems, and then allow a plurality of delivery services to consume and order through the standard interface.
I recently ordered a pickup order that seemed to just be using the restaurant's POS system.
For delivery it's harder because you actually need someone to deliver the food and the logistics are really hard (they have to get there when the food is ready but not too late and not too early, etc.). But... there are like 80 restaurants in a 10 minute walk radius from me, so I can just deal with pickup for now.
The downside is that that one middleman often has incorrect menus, and if there are any issues it then becomes a he-said she-said they-said juggling act with the service, the restaurant, and the driver blaming each other for any problems. The drawbacks balance out the benefits of having one central service, in that way. But that's not everything.
The best part is actually just having a variety to order from. Before these delivery services, there were only a couple of pizza places and a couple of Chinese restaurants and nothing else delivered.
For a lot of restaurants, it never made business sense to deliver, and still wouldn't. But when the delivery service is spread out over many restaurants, it works rather well. That's good for both the businesses and the customers, despite the friction added by the middlemen. It's a real win for people who couldn't as easily go out to eat, due to health or disability or whatever, but also for everyone else.
Visa, Amazon, Apple, Google, or Paypal sort of provide that function, but being able to shop many restaurants with a single identity has its benefits. Something that wouldnt be fixed just by restaurants with nice websites.