On: Seamless and GrubHub Announce Merger

[jcutrell]

Now, if only they could talk Zifty (Zifty.com) into merging, Atlanta would have every restaurant available in one service.

[jseliger → jcutrell]

I wonder about the extent to which the GrubHub/Seamless model will prevail and the extent to which the ChowNow model will. My brother works for the latter, and now that I know what to look for I've seen a fair number of NYC restaurants using "their own" ordering systems.

[jeffasinger → jseliger]

I almost guarantee that this market will eventually stabilize to one of two outcomes:

1) Standardized ordering API allows restaurants with "their own" ordering system to be listed on GrubHub/Seamless.

2) One company (probably Grubless) serves as an aggregator but also sells a lame iframe-for-your-website/custom-app combo.

Restaurants should probably hope for #1.

[parsnips → jseliger]

I think the market will be able to support both models for quite some time, as Seamless/Grubhub will never leave high population density markets until delivery problem is solved.

[pavel_lishin → jseliger]

What's the difference? At a glance, it looks like Seamhub organizes everything under their brand, whereas ChowNow makes a custom app for every restaurant.

The latter seems nice if I already have a restaurant in mind, but if I'm too lazy to cook on monday night, I'm not going to go through the apps one-by-one.

[jeffasinger → pavel_lishin]

The Seamhub model is better for the user, the ChowNow mode typically doesn't charge the restaurant per order, as Seamless/Grubhub do.

[rabidonrails → jseliger]

I'm fairly certain that Grubhub also allows (and powers) restaurant ordering on the "restaurant's website" -- essentially it brings you back to a Grubhub page but it can be directly linked from the restaurant's site.

[cellshade → jcutrell]

What about GoWaiter?