I don’t really care, to be honest. I’m using the apps because I can’t go eat out right now. Getting whatever money I can to local restaurants with an actual physical location so that they might be around when I can go eat there is valuable to me. I don’t have any interest in supporting big chains, and I don’t have any interest in supporting local food operations that function purely through the apps because I won’t be using the apps the second I can go out again.
I guess the downside here is that huge chains like Chili’s get to pretend they are small local joints.
Well, what I’m saying is I ignore new “pop up” restaurant results and stick with places I know are real local restaurants. So yes, some local “ghost kitchen” outfits will lose out on my business that way, possibly. But I don’t care, because I want to support real physically located restaurants and not anything I’d need to get from a delivery app when shit gets back to normal.
We’ve had two new chains show up here that I only knew showed up during the pandemic due to them being on apps. Jersey Mikes and Jamba Juice. Umm, i don’t want to actively avoid new locations because why should i, but there is no reason that Denny’s needs to call their burgers The Burger Den and Sharis calls theirs Coco’s Famous Hamburgers. That’s just dishonest.
I’ll do new local restaurants that I could physically go to and eat at, sure, why not. But I’m going to do that based on, e.g., local food critic coverage and not “new on Doordash”.
I suspect I’m in a minority in that I have avoided almost every chain restaurant since the beginning of the pandemic, and the chain or two I have dealt with are local to my metro specifically. I just don’t see any reason to give them my business when the little guys need it more.
Well if you have an area with good choices, then sure you can avoid the chains. My location, the most exciting thing around here is usually the arrival of some new chain. The lines at In and Out have not really improved in 2 years. Sadly a number of our local places are just not… good or have like two tables and are not open past 8pm if they’re open for dinner at all.
The Twin Cities do have a bunch of tremendously good restaurants.
I can only see two reasons to do this: either 1) your reputation sucks, so you are throwing up a new brand to try to get around that, or 2) you think that branding as cuisine-specific will make people think it is your “specialty” and so you do it better than most.
Overall I do see anything too bad about running multiple businesses out of a single store-front, but as Nesrie says, it feels dishonest, or maybe sleazy somehow.
You can be one of the 100 brands competing to be on the front page, or you can be 10 of the 109 brands, much better odds… If there is little cost, then the scarce space gated by recommendation engines is worth gaming.
Yeah, the crappy thing here is Red Robin is part of the Dash Pass, but none of those fakes are so if a member gets suckered into using them they pay more in fees than they would otherwise.
Oh that’s hilariously awful, lol.
“Luckily” they’re all DashPass here, at least?
I ordered food for lunch yesterday from Doordash. I live in a highrise that has limited parking, but generally delivery drivers find a way. But maybe 1 out of 6 either refuses to get creative or just doesn’t feel like schlepping up to the 14th floor so they pretend the callbox isn’t working or something.
In this case, the driver found the building, found the callbox, and told me he couldn’t find parking. I say OK, I’ll come down.
I go down the elevator and he’s nowhere to be found. Check the driveway, which is a bit of an “L” shape - nada. Go around the corner, and there’s a random bag sitting on the street at the corner. Guess what’s in it? My food! The guy just dropped the bag on the street about 50ft away from the door, which he knew was the door because he called me from the callbox!
And the best part is the photo below is the one the driver took and texted to me! He literally gave no fucks.
Needless to say I complained and got a full refund plus $6.34 extra as a credit.
I wonder who gets penalized, if anyone, in this situation. Does Doordash still pay KFC for my food? Does the driver get fired?
Anyway, annoying.
That happens occasionally. You got a free meal plus six bucks, so it can’t smart too badly.
But why? Why would someone do that!? How can they possible think that’s okay.
Why would Wendy’s give you a burger at the drive-in without any burger in it? Because it’s some kid and he doesn’t give a shit. Don’t give it too much thought, he certainly didn’t.
The one is likely an accident. This that person’s job. Supposedly they survive on tips and ratings. It’s just all sort of crazy that someone would deliver that and not think it will bite them in the ass later.
I’m sure we have crazy stories like this. I think the nature of these gig economy jobs means you’re going to get people who don’t know how to have a job.
I’ve had delivery drivers get near my apartment and then apparently decide they’d rather not and drive away, telling the app that they delivered the food. Not sure what they thought would happen when I tell Doordash that no, the food was not delivered, and there’s no texted photo showing it delivered.
And as I noted about parking, I have about 1 in 6 drivers simply refuse to find a place to park. About 1 in 10 call me and tell me they can’t even find the building.
And I think three times I’ve had the totally wrong order delivered to me - not even close like a missing item, just clearly someone else’s order sitting outside my door.
My assumption is that there is very little, if any, actual vetting of the drivers going on. In my area it’s rare to have someone who speaks English very well, which is totally fine until they call you shouting about something.
That’s exactly right, they’re just kids who don’t care.
When they call me shouting I tell them to deliver the food to my doorman, and if they can’t do that then I’ll cancel the order in 10 minutes. I’ve had to do that many times and always get a $10 credit. It is what it is. I give a 20% tip, if they can’t deliver the food to my building in less than an hour then they can fuck right off.
In my experience, Doordash actually tends to be a bit better than Grubhub/Seamless.
A fiftyish year old woman came to my house and dropped off a meal, but stuck around to complain about me not cutting my bush back enough to easily see the numbers. They’re also on the sidewalk.
I have yet to see a young person deliver here. Then again, it’s supposed to be contactless delivery, but only some of them acknowledge that.
Yeah this is probably closer to what might be happening, but there are a number of people desperate for this jobs that I question really pay more than they cost. Even still, when you have someone on video literally crying because their tip is too low and then you have someone who just drops the bag… anywhere. They have no consistency with experience here.
I don’t know exactly how the apps work on the delivery side, but I kind of assume they figure that they have 5 more deliveries that they’re already late for, and if they waste any more time trying to find you, they’ll get bad feedback on all 5 instead of just fucking you over and getting bad feedback on yours.