Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but companies (and individuals) pass off things all the time. Shipping is perhaps the most obvious example. If I'm an eBay seller and ship something to you, once I give you a tracking number, it's mostly between you and UPS. (Unless, e.g., an item was improperly packed and UPS won't honor a claim, etc.)
"Passing off" in this context doesn't mean something being passed to another party, like a sportsball player making a pass.
Rather, it's a common law term for selling an item while misrepresenting its origin [1] - for example, if an ebay seller claims to sell real rolexes and sends out fake rolexes, they have 'passed off' the fakes as real. This can happen even in the absence of registered trademarks.
Of course, most of the historical examples are of copycat products - but the definitions used on Wikipedia sound like it might cover misrepresenting restaurant partnerships - particularly if the restaurant's reputation is besmirched by inept deliveries.
> they will refer you to the business that cooked the food unless
This hasn't been my experience. Every time I've used Grubhub or Postmates and used their form to submit an issue with an order, the services have always either refunded me the issue or provided credit. I've never had to deal with the restaurant, unless I wanted something outside of money.
If you have a complaint, they just refund you right away. I think they know customers could start issuing chargebacks through the credit card company and they wouldn’t have a way to defend themselves against that.
