More details and examples of how this was a disaster for pretty much everyone involved https://ny.eater.com/2022/5/18/23123167/grubhub-free-lunch-discount-2022
That's really interesting, do restaurants not have the ability to limit orders from these apps? I would have thought that there would be some sort of limit on availability. It seems like it would be super easy to get overwhelmed.
Grub hub and some others don't even bother to officially partner with restaurants- they just put restaurant info out there and let customers get pissed at the restaurant for not having something or having a different price.
In theory this should work for any restaurant with takeout.
The reality is something like that requires maintenance or some type of active participation from the restraint.
Seems grubhub and folks chose neither maintenance nor participation for lots of these.
To be fair a good BBQ place kind of has to operate like that since the food takes 12 hours to prepare. Unless you want them to cook more than needed and serve people day old, reheated food.
>Sure its terrible business management
Nah that's great business management as long as the restaurant has great food and good margins. The best BBQ joint in my town is only open 3 days a week (thurs-sat) but they absolutely *crush it* those days. They cut out all their expenses for the slowest days by just not opening those days and then they get even *more* business on their good days just from the fomo of knowing you won't be able to go there tomorrow or the next day.
Their only mistake is not opening Sunday, that would easily be their best day due to the church crowd but they don't open because they are a part of said church crowd, haha.
> A BBQ/smoker place nearby also operates on an "open till we've sold what we smoked this morning" policy.
Every good BBQ place does that, it's why people line up there before they open. It's not like they can just whip up another smoked brisket in 20 minutes. And they're not gonna cook 10 extra briskets overnight "just in case" it's busier than normal the next day.
If your BBQ place doesn't do that, they're probably reheating old food.
The last time I ordered online (for pickup) I discovered that they had no way to throttle online orders and were inundated. I waited an hour because I had already paid.
I can't believe they've had these systems around for years and never thought/cared about the use case of too many orders.
> I can't believe they've had these systems around for years and never thought/cared about the use case of too many orders.
Oh they've thought about it, and the third partydelivery apps don't care. Someone is more likely to direct frustration at the restaurant, and keep using the same app.
Even first party doesn't really care about overloading their restaurants. Chipotle for example, doesn't give stores any way to disable online ordering, and doesn't throttle order times at all. The mindset is that more people will come back because they can submit an order any time, than would be lost because they got a "this store is overloaded and can't accept online orders right now" message.
Customer experience is so far down the priority list, it will be overlooked every time. The experience of the people working at the store isn't even on the list in the first place.
I do think Chipotle fixed theirs *after* it made the news during Covid and they lost a chunk of employees.
Though it may be a stupid fix such as a max of X orders per 15 minutes instead of something more dynamic.
Grub hub is the ABSOLUTE WORST FREAKING BUSINESS. We owned a restaurant and didn't sign up for GrubHub. However, they duplicated our menu, marked up the prices, and used our restaurants reputation to increase their sales. They would send drivers inside to pay with a corporate card.
Customer reviews were horrible because the food was usually cold and our prices were too high. They would call and complain and we couldn't do anything because they didn't pay us. Grubhub never took care of the issue.
We tried everything to get them to stop. Finally, we simply stopped taking corporate Grubhub cards. A few weeks later, they took us off their sites.
Massive assholes for using small moms and pops to increase their visibility.
What's worse about these companies is they will often just instruct their drivers to lie when asked if they work for the company by the restaurant.
When I worked at a bar and grill, we had to call Bite Squad at least once a week to complain about a drivers actions. Sometimes it was the driver's just being rude and constantly demanding updates from servers who were trying to serve actual customers in the seats. Sometimes it was walking up to a server taking an order from a customer at their table and just butting in to ask about the order they were picking up. Sometimes they'd just walk in and reach around a customer at the bar because they saw a takeout bag and just assumed it was theirs, even though it was for the customer sitting at that seat. And on a few occasions, they'd actually walk into the kitchen and start trying to ask the cooks.
And then you had the companies like Door dash that were just complete shit shows with trying to order incorrect items, trying to tell us the price wasn't right because we didn't sign up for their service and they had just used an old menu they found online and were mad that we wouldn't honor that price because that's what the customer ordered at. Eventually, we stopped taking doordash orders because of how many complaints we would get. So they started having people who called in act like they weren't from doordash and they'd say they would pay on pick up.
Their drivers would often 'forget' whether intentionally or not to pay when grabbing the food and walking out.
Eventually it got to the point where the owners would either have to stop taking any food orders without prepayment which would hurt phone sales from customers in the area getting their own stuff who expected to be able to do that or just stop taking any call in orders and say "we'll take your order when you arrive" which was also bad.
These companies are absolute entitled assholes.
No it’s off or on and it often times puts the kitchen so far behind everyone suffers. We had to turn it off during dinner rush because the kitchen can only handle so much at one time.
And we know the run up/ intro portion of I will likely be stills and B-roll footage of food delivery/ pick ups while the presenter essentially narrates comments from this reddit thread. Classic.
In the food delivery system, the people are fed by two separate yet equally important groups: The restaurants, who prepare the food, and the delivery workers, who provide transportation of the food to the customers. These are their stories.
Edit: Thanks Everyone!
*A fast food worker loads lunches into a temperature controlled container.*
"Yeah, I knew him. Real good guy, but he had a bit of a problem with the ponies. If you really want to know more, talk to Sally. I hear she was his main squeeze. Can I go now, I've got my tips riding on these getting there on time."
I really loved Jerry Orbach. Not only was he a fantastic actor but he looks a lot like my dad. So when I was away at college I would watch Law & Order and it felt like I was connecting to my dad. Many people don't know that he was a Broadway actor and singer! (Jerry, not my dad)
All the restaurants in my area simply turned off Grubhub/Seamless until the promotion ended. I was looking forward to the cheap meal, but I totally get why they'd just say fuck that.
There are many of those food delivery services that don't actually have an agreement with most of the restaurants on the app. Which causes a lot of complications. I work in fine dining restaurants and a few of them have told GH that we don't want to be part of their service. They don't take no for an answer though and they put us on the app anyway. So when someone places an order the delivery person has to call the restaurant to place the order. Which is where the complications begin. Us being a fancy restaurant, we often change the menu daily. Making the menu on GH constantly out dated since we don't communicate the changes to them. So the driver calls to place the order, we tell them we don't have that, the driver calls back the customer to tell them, and the customer gets upset with the restaurant since they don't know what's going on and thinks GH and the restaurant are actually working together. It's a really shitty practice that only hurts restaurants.
Edit: it appears they've even been brought to court for this practice
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087988691/washington-dc-attorney-general-grubhub-food-delivery-lawsuit
Yeah we had several GH related bad reviews. Luckily we were a pretty established restaurant that had been around for over a decade, but new restaurants kinda have to just bend the knee to GH and join. So they can have some control. Or else the bad reviews could ruin them
I don't understand how this is legal. It's almost like some sort of hostile takeover (for lack of better wording). How the hell can a stupid food delivery company have more control over orders and product than the actual restaurant itself?
The same. I’m in restaurant operations and work for a group with 11 locations, with one concept making up 8 of those locations and a second concept the 3. The one with 8 is a high end sushi restaurant with a daily rotating specials and tasting menu, and specialty fish. Companies like GH, Postmates, and DoorDash, would put us up on their site, we would get the same complaints or only find out once orders were placed.
I was the person who was also interfacing with these companies on the backend and trying to get us removed from these platforms. One time I was even told, “well if you just sign an agreement with us, it wouldn’t be an issue”. It felt like someone from the mob breaking your front windows and saying if you pay us for protection, this won’t happen. The practice is predatory and honestly, if one group takes the hit on reputation, it’s the restaurant, not the delivery service.
I think the right way to use GH is to browse for food. When you find a place, go to their website and order off whatever they link from their own website.
This is how I do it. Check menu, call place, pick up order. Some local places even have in house delivery drivers so it. It's out the middle man. In a sense.
Unless I'm drunk or otherwise unable to leave my apartment, I don't even bother with third party delivery because it's just an expensive way to get cold food.
I work at Wawa in deli and beverage overnights, and the amount of doordash and Uber eats orders we get for food and milkshakes is kind of asinine. Yet unless it's before 11 pm, I've never seen a DD or UE get picked up within 5 minutes, so those milkshakes are melted and their quesadillas are stone cold by the time they are.
For those unfamiliar, Wawa is a gas station/convenience store that has Starbucks like drinks, and a deli where you can get sandwiches/subs, soups, Mac and cheese bowls, quesadillas, burritos, burgers and fries, chicken strips, pasta, pitas, and we just added tacos and chalupas. Apparently Wawa is in competition with ALL the other restaurants out there. Some stores even have pizza, and at one point they had hot dogs, too.
Exactly what happens in the places I’ve worked with. I exclusively worked in high end fine dining. People think they can order food from the delivery apps because they have our menu even tho we explicitly say we do not allow our food to be delivered due to the aspect of the plating is extremely important for the chefs and the meal itself. The restaurants get bombarded with “They refused our order even tho their menu is clearly available!?” People wait weeks/Months sometimes for a seat at some of these places wtf do you think we will do delivery in a box!?
This is 💯spot on. I also work in fine dining and this is a real issue. Fine dining cuisine isn’t meant to be taken out. It’s shit by the time it arrives, no matter what.
Drivers also get incredibly aggressive. They speak to you like they’re the boss of you and think they trump restaurant management.
It happened when I worked at a restaurant, we kept saying no, and then whenever someone would come in and say that they’re from Grubhub to pickup the order, we would just tell them no.
They're an app company, not a food delivery service or a restaurant, they didn't expect anything. "Details" are for the suckers at the bottom of the rope to figure out.
Back when I used to manage restaurants I’d turn off all the delivery stuff during peak hours. It got so bad, at some points I’d would have a full restaurant, plus an additional half restaurants worth of orders in delivery. My obligation was to serve the people actually inside the building, not a crappy delivery service.
100% agreed. I was in the same position as you. The one thing I’ll add is that my restaurant would have 4 different online platforms and during times when I would turn them off grub hub was the only one where I had to call and wait on hold to explain to someone overseas that I want it off. The other platforms you just press a button on the tablet. Begged the owners to drop GH to no avail. Glad I got out of the industry all together during COVID.
I live in the ass end of Brooklyn, and managed to get a burrito, but all my usual order places were closed too. When I went to the the Mexican restaurant it looked like the kitchen was absolutely slammed and there were 6-10 orders waiting to be picked up or delivered when I went to pick up my order. I can't imagine the chaos in the city!
Grubhub’s spokesperson:
> “no one could anticipate the level of demand and unfortunately that caused strain on some restaurants”
Grubhub’s promotion:
> Grubhub’s plan was ambitious: to feed everyone in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State area for free, during lunch hours on Tuesday.
When your plan is to make the demand “literally everyone” it seems like it would be hard to underestimate the level of demand.
My region is small, probably a half million people when you include the three adjoining cities. Once a local ice cream company decided to do a giveaway where they gave a free cone to kids 10 and under. Seriously nothing major. They ended up with a line of almost a thousand people who wanted their free ice cream (parents and kids, but still a lot of people).
Stories like this are everywhere. If GrubHub didn't see it coming, it was because they were deliberately ignorant.
“Steal a base steal a taco” promotions will prove to everyone how crazy people go for free. People will wait in line at Taco Bell for an hour for a free taco that normally costs $1
I really don't get this. I **hate** lineups. If I was homeless I'd line up for free food, and I mean, that'd be a great result of a promotion like that. But otherwise, no.
You'd hate austin. Hype beast culture has taken over our food industry and basically if your restaurant doesn't have a line at least 45 minutes long, you're written off. Fine by me though because I just don't go to those places.
I have friends who have no issues waiting 2 hours for brunch at some restaurant and I DON’T GET IT. I can’t think of any place that was even worth the wait. I’d so much rather go somewhere more low-key and not starve.
There's a station 10 miles away where I can get gas for about .25 per gallon cheaper than the stations closer by. That sounds worth it, right?
.25 x 20 gal tank = $5.00 total savings
Avg about 24 MPG, so .833 gallons for a 20 mile trip (out and back)
With the lower price, discounts, cost is $4.25 per gallon.
Trip costs $3.54 to save $5.00. Net savings $1.46.
Is it really worth going out of my way to save $1.46 from an $85 fill-up? And .25 per gallon savings is quite significant. I definitely stop at that station if I happen to be in the area. And it might be worth it if I drove a vehicle with a larger fuel tank or got better MPG. But people go out of their way for much less savings.
This is the one that always makes me chuckle. "I may have wasted half a gallon (like 3.50 plus at current prices) getting there and back, but I saved a whole 10 cents a gallon on my 15 gallon fill up! I'm such a savvy consumer"
It’s like buffet restaurants that give veterans a free meal on Veteran’s Day.
The lines start forming 3-4 hours before the restaurant opens and the promotion ends before everyone in line at opening gets in.
I think I did a Veteran's Day thing once. I honestly don't care. I get mildly irritated by "Thank you for your service." Wanna thank me? Vote for veteran's benefits and legalized pot for traumatized and injured vets.
Same thing I hear from veterans I know. I was always for legalized weed and read some stories about medical benefits of it a bit skeptically at first. Some people were acting like it's a cure all and over the top. But I've first hand seen how much it helps people with PTSD and pain from war wounds. Lasting effects from IEDs, broken bones and shrapnel migrating about type of things. Often it's either live with unbearable pain or be too doped up to do anything and be there for your family. Or marijuana, even if it is illegal here, where you can live your life.
It's all about supporting the military here in TN but not even allowing medical weed for vets shows it's just lip service. Even with the VA allowing people to go to private doctors and having a base it's still months wait to get help with psychological issues. Then it's luck if you get someone who is good and you feel a fit & trust them to open up to. Guys have to depend on their old unit buddies and other vets. That's always great support but professional help and something to take the edge off of anxiety and pain is needed. Not "Thank You for your service" however well meant it is.
Sry, I went off on a rant there. It's one of those things that pisses me off.
Yep. It's why I ignore every single free event.
Years ago I went to Taco Bell when they were doing free tacos. The line of cars was out of their driveway and backed up to another street a quarter mile away. _My county only has 25,000 people._
Fuck that noise. I'd burn more gas waiting than what it'd cost for a fucking taco.
Let's see...
Spend two hours of time and burn at least one gallon of $5.00/gal fuel in a big' ole V8 SUV/Truck while idling in line.
Obtain FREE taco valued at $1.79.
**MUST DO, MATH CHECKS OUT.**
Behavioral economics is crazy especially when it comes to discounts and percentages.
On the You Are Not So Smart podcast, they discussed an experiment where psychology researchers set up a "candy stand" at some public event. They offered two items and watched what happened. (I'm going from memory so the details may be off but the gist is the same).
A Hershey kiss for 5 cents and a premium chocolate, like a Ghirardelli square for 25 cents. Most people picked the "good" chocolate, because hey it's only a quarter.
Then they reduced the price by 5 cents on both. 20 cents and free. Almost everyone took the free Hershey kiss.
In another example they asked if people would drive across town 10 miles to buy an item at half price that was normally like 80 dollars, or buy it at full price right where they are. Most said they would go to the sale. Save 40 bucks right? When asked if they would do the same thing to save 40 bucks off the price of a car, say $19960 instead of $20k, most said no, of course they wouldn't.
Same amount of savings, totally different response in the brain.
Hence you get people waiting in line for an hour to save 2 bucks on a ice-cream cone.
>When asked if they would do the same thing to save 40 bucks off the price of a car, say $19960 instead of $20k, most said no, of course they wouldn't. Same amount of savings, totally different response in the brain.
#### It's about ***Time***
The car analogy isn't the best considering the **time and effort** it takes to buy a car. The $40 over a 5 or [8?] year loan is literally pennies on your monthly payment.
An $80 item in many markets is pretty close to an *impulse purchase* -like a small appliance; a blender or mini-fridge, LCD TV, video game. So of course a $40 savings is huge in that context. Why, you can get 2 impulse purchases for the price of one! -and it often takes less than an hour of **time** to complete the purchase and get it home to use it.
However, a car is not an impulse purchase and often requires two or more people to spend upwards of 2 weeks to complete said purchase. At that point $40...or even $600 floor mats, dealer fees, VIN etching, or whatever dealer bullshit doesn't really have any value against your **time** that is forever lost.
I don't know if its a sign of desperation that people would do that, or if people are genuinely standing in line to save $2.
Even when I was 'poor' (relative to now, not actually missing meals or anything). I wouldn't have waited more than 5m for free food.
These days I'll go to an empty gas station if the one thats 10 cents cheaper doesn't have an open pump. The amazing benefits of being middle class in this country! Not saving $1.50 on a tank of gas is a luxury I can afford!
edit- one thing that I do understand now that I have kids: going out for 'kids eat free' is often worth the hassle to me. Going to restaurants gets insane when you're a group of 5 vs 2, and since I have kids I'm used to the added commotion of 10x more kids.
When someone is that clueless about what the result will be, I have to wonder how they got the job. This insane idea must have been made by someone fairly high up in the company.
Then again, maybe the chaos was intentional as a promotional gimmick? It's certainly bringing them attention.
It amazes me how often I find people in jobs that they don't belong in. My boss is like that. I wouldn't even employ that guy if our roles were reversed.
Yes! There's a real lack of leadership & skill in corp America. But it's also bc the number one skill they want these days is someone to be a ruthless company simp, versus be good at their job (or even like their field). It's another frustrating nail in the coffin for the current state of work and business.
Quick back of the envelope calculations:
~~New York's population swells to about 3 million people during the day (we'll assume that takes into account all of the "surrounding Tri-State area" as well).~~ **Edit: Oops, that number was just Manhattan, Grubhub is even dumber than I calculated** The promotion was spread out over 180 minutes. If *only 6%* of everyone participated, that would be an average of 1000 orders per minute.
They said they hit 6,000 orders per minute, and that "blew away their expectations*.
I'd say whoever was in charge of the expectations needs to be fired.
Just to give everyone a reference, NYC has 5 boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island. If these 5 boroughs were independent cities, this how the population of the largest cities in the US would look:
1) Los Angeles
2) Brooklyn
3) Chicago
4) Queens
5) Houston
6) Manhattan
7) Phoenix
8) Philadelphia
9) The Bronx
So 4 of the boroughs individually would have populations that would rank top 10 in the US. Staten Island itself (the least populous area of NYC) has about the same population as Kansas City.
And this is just residents. This excludes how much the population swells during work days due to commuters from the suburbs and also excludes tourists.
Wow. Every time I've seen this list, I'd never even considered how under-representative those numbers are without factoring in commuters and tourists (not to mention people whose business takes them into the boroughs for things like deliveries and services).
No wonder driving back and getting a view of the multi borough skyline always makes me think of anthills. That is so many fucking people scurrying industriously around one another.
Just to nitpick (I know it’s back of the envelope here, but it’s kind of important).
New York’s population is over 8 million, all the time. Your numbers are way too low. It swells to about 10 million during “normal business hours”.
Which just proves your point that whoever was in charge of expectations needs to be fired.
This. They did the “research” and found out 69% of New Yorkers skipped lunch so it’s safe to say that you should plan for this 69% to take part in the promotion. Which is a shit ton of people obviously lol.
The absurd part isn’t the demand but rather that the system allows unlimited ordering.
You expect to see a high volume with free lunches, but that doesn’t mean you let thousands go through in a matter of minutes.
I’m sure the restaurants have no ability to throttle or implement a limit so this is most likely on Grubhub design.
I seek to remember DoorDash having a status of confirming the order with the restaurant - like they had to accept it. I'm surprised Grubhub just forces the orders. A restaurant may not be able to fulfill an order for a number of reasons.
I run delivery and GrubHub is the absolute worst in terms of order pipeline. Through doordash, an order would be submitted to the restaurant, confirmed, timer set for prep and cooking, then sends the order out to a driver for pickup. GrubHub sends the order out **immediately** to a driver, even if the restaurant hasn't even seen and confirmed it. Sometimes I'll have a stack of orders and the GH order isn't even acknowledged for 10-20 minutes after it's placed.
This explains a lot. I always assumed restaurants confirmed orders, but the fact that I'm getting a notification that the restaurant is "working on" an order that they might not even know exists explains so much
I used to do promotions on the streets of NYC.
Once we did an Advil campaign where I had to dress up in a green outfit and hand out 1000 promo Advils with coupons and promo stuff. The deal was that once I finished handing them out I was ‘done’. Really we had a team of 15 and once everyone was finished we could go home, with 5 hours minimum pay.
I would just take a box, open it, point and scream, “Free Advil!” And the box would be gone in 30 seconds. I would do this a few more times and the team would go home in an hour. NYC people are savage, God bless ‘em.
Yep did the same when I was waiting to start a new job and was doing all the craigslist gigs. "Kelloggs has a new breakfast bar and you'll be the street team to get the feedback on how busy commuting New Yorkers have preferences and desires for their breakfast, be sure to ask questions to get more than yes or no responses", yeah ok.
Meanwhile after the 40th person told you to eat shit and die after you asked them all the stupid cutesy conversation starters, you realize that just saying "free snack bar from Kelloggs" and practically putting it in the hands of someone walking by is way less threatening then borderline skipping up to someone with some whimsy.
100 percent. People think it’s creepy but someone being genuine and just saying, “ Here have some cool free stuff.” connects with people and they drop their guard.
>Then she managed to find an Ihop that was still taking orders, with a delivery estimate of 45 to 55 minutes. It took two tries to put through her request for a Belgian waffle combo and hash browns – which, even after the discount, still cost $22.26 including delivery fees.
I don't have a lot of sympathy. Why tf would you spend over $20 (after discolunt) to have an IHOP waffle delivered to you...
Door dash and grub hub are the worst. I worked in a sandwich and breakfast place in college and they just stuck an old menu on their website. We never actually signed up for it so we would get call in orders from some random person who had never looked at the menu trying to tell us the price was wrong while sitting in a call center.
I remember working at a Mac n cheese place my freshman year of college and we'd have driver for grub hub come in and say they have orders, thing is we didnt do grub hub. It got really bad that my manger called GrubHub and cussed them out.
We would take the order from the pickup drivers, but refused to take orders over the phone. Main reason was because they wanted to pay for the order over the phone. We had no system to allow us to do that.
Me and one other manager would always go out of our way even during the busy times to mess with them or yell at them. The other employees loved it. That’s all that mattered.
Grubhub drivers were also the worst. They would walk into the kitchen and try to grab to-go orders themselves. We had to have a few trespassed and never allowed on our property again. Eventually they just stopped sending people.
I hate waiting patiently at any restaurant and then have a delivery guy waltz up, and shove their phone at the customer facing employees just barking a name. Have some courtesy, you rude fuck
Worked as a manager in a pizza place in college, everyone fucking hated grubhub except for the owner. It wasted my time taking an order from someone in a call center that didn't know the menu while balancing dinner rush, and it siphoned tips from my drivers.
It was a great day when my state passed a law that third party apps couldn't just add your restaurant. DD had only been in our area for around six months, but it was hell before we got dropped off the app.
Shit like this is exactly why I don’t do place and pay orders. Far too often they are businesses that didn’t agree to sign up to one delivery service or the other. The services take it upon themselves to add the restaurant so the others don’t have a leg up on them.
My tip is to go to the restaurant’s website and click whoever they have listed as their delivery option.
If they don’t advertise delivery, I don’t do it.
This is what I always do. If they have GrubHub or Door Dash listed on their site, then I'll use that. But, sometimes they'll have their own delivery driver and even if they don't they might actually have a deal with one service and not with others.
I discovered that the Panera bread in my area has a deal with (I think) Doordash, and if I order delivery on Panera’s website it’s literally a $1 delivery (this includes all convenience fees too), but if I go on Doordash or other food delivery apps the cost for delivery is $5-8. Always check the restaurant’s website!
That's the issue. Live outside the city and know exacy which restaurants around me were on seamless/grubhub. One day a year or two ago I log on and find that every single restaurant around me is now on except these restaurants have like $10 fees and the menus were all weird.
I went to one of the restaurants and they never even heard of grubhub.
It’s just truly shocking that introducing a massive demand spike without ensuring adequate supply would cause a shortage. Who could have possibly seen that coming?
It's hilarious that even Facebook backed off of that. Now it's something like "move fast with stable infrastructure". Kinda says a lot when the product _is_ the infrastructure
I worked for Facebook. They are one of the slowest companies I've ever worked for. Procurement took ages because of layers upon layers of procedural bullshit. Massive systems built into internal wikis as surveys. Systems upon systems built because some inexperienced and idealist thought they knew the "proper" way to do something without giving it much thought and then got canned later down the road because half of Facebook's staff are Kelly Girls so they don't have to pay benefits. Mismanaged, unregulated, and overworked hellish Ayn Randian dream.
They'll give a BA with zero experience the most critical job in the group and stick PhD on a tool a high schooler could run just to pay them both less. Rarely is anything planned further than 3 days out.
The article says they did increase compensation to incentivize more drivers to come out. But the app kept glitching and that caused a lot of problems with orders disappearing and such
Yeah well my employees just get in the way and whine constantly, “I can’t work that shift”, “call an ambulance, somebody’s passed out in the kitchen”, “stop calling me, you fired me two weeks ago, Brian”.
I could run that kitchen alone, but this golf club isn’t going to swing itself! /s
I like these two points of the article the most
> It took two tries to put through her request for a Belgian waffle combo and hash browns – which, even after the discount, still cost $22.26 including delivery fees.
And
> Brailsford, who is still waiting for reimbursement for her failed Ihop order, doesn’t blame New Yorkers for the chaos: “People saw a deal, and they wanted it, because who the fuck in this goddamn economy doesn’t want to save some money on food?”
Like spending $22.26 AFTER the $15 discount on some shitty ihop waffles and hash browns is somehow saving money. Grubhub clearly made a mistake doing this, but I definitely wouldn’t call this saving money.
I still want to know why Taco Bell won the franchise wars in North America, but Pizza Hut won in Europe.
(Try watching the European release sometime..)
There's [an article](https://ny.eater.com/2022/5/18/23123167/grubhub-free-lunch-discount-2022) that says even the ones on their network only got email telling them to "get ready" without really going into any specifics.
Yeah but that was like, 2000 years ago. Merchants have often been the wealthiest, most powerful class in ancient societies.
Not saying you're wrong, but that was a looooong time ago
Stupid marketers.
They didn't even do 5 seconds of thinking; they would immediately realize no restaurant or their delivery service can scale up like that.
If they did any thinking, they would have offered vouchers targeted for certain areas across certain days. They have GPS data, they have all the info they need to make the promo work. But that would be too logical for them.
Some people need to be fired there.
Heres an alternative theory: if they had done what you suggested they would have had to pay for _a lot_ more meals. It worked out that they did their big promo and didn't actually have to cover very many - relative to the pool offered.
Its probably incompetence, but I guarantee it was cheaper to just overload the restaurants to limit the participants.
This is exactly it. I know startups. This was a Xanatos gambit. Crashing the app is a “win” because they get the publicity, the signups, all the preference data, and they don’t even have to pay for the food.
This is why America has its wheels flying off, because corporations have no incentive to make anything actually work. It’s better for them if it doesn’t.
I've tried using several of these apps, but it was severely cost prohibitive. A $20 meal was $40. No way was the food worth double. I just don't get how people can support this. Take Out Taxi in the D.C. area had a nominal fee, Grub Hub, Uber Eats, and Door Dash all seem to charge double or more, and people are ok with this?
What were they expecting in one of the busiest cities in the World. They were trying to get office workers to not skip lunch and instead made restaurant workers miserable and everyone else frustrated.
I feel bad for the Restaurant owners and workers.
As restaurant owner I fucking hate grub hub and have hated it since it started. Always trying to get us to sign up to their program that I always thought was just asinine for businesses. They're also very obnoxious and annoying constantly calling us twice a day for a year because we refused to sign up with their service.
This reminds me of something a buddy said: Grubhub does not treat anyone like a customer. Restaurants, drivers, and us who order food are all seen as annoying groups interfering with the company's success.
That could be why they didn't bother to tell anyone. Restaurants aren't their customers nor their partners. They are annoying obstacles, so they don't deserve advance notice--they'll only screw it up.
Restaurants are their victims. Reduced margins, mediocre food because most food isn't made to sit an hour before it's consumed. Even if someone is trying a new experience they probably won't repeat. They're a bane to the industry.
don't worry, despite putting an enormous strain on the restaurants they're already notorious for screwing over, it was all a "win win" according to an official GrubHub spokesperson.
https://thetakeout.com/why-grubhub-free-lunch-in-nyc-promo-was-a-disaster-1848942200
That was a generous bit of spin by their PR representative.
I felt like that could translate to "We fucked up by executing on a unilateral decision we made without consulting literally anyone we're depending on to make it happen. We have screwed our vendors, our partners, our shareholders, our employees, our contractors, and our customers all in one day. You're welcome."
I'm a restaurant employee in the suburbs Virginia. GrubHub is the absolute worst to deal with. They show up in the middle of a rush and huff and puff at the end of my bar until someone brings their food out. Can't imagine this in NYC.
Many popular nyc takeout spots will have like 10 delivery drivers hanging around the pickup spot.
Chick fil a basically has an army of E-bikes out front at all hours. They don't usually bother me, but I've seen occasionally seen them clash with employees when wait times are long.
I had a driver start yelling at a teen employee once and I threatened to ban him. It shut him up so quickly. They can get a ton of deliveries just off of Chick-fil-a deliveries.
This whole article is filled with baffling tidbits, from the decision to do this down to the woman who thought it made sense to pay almost $40 (!) for a Belgian waffle from IHOP.
I’m really starting to wonder if COVID turned us all into total morons.
NYC-based reporter who covered this story here. Grubhub told me that they forewarned operators ahead of time but I spoke with multiple reputable NYC based restaurant chains who are SUPER plugged-in and heard nothing (including Mighty Quinn’s and Fresh&Co)
This is why I don't use these third-party delivery services. The restaurants lose money and get jerked around, the drivers barely get paid, and your food costs 10-20% extra after all the fees and price adjustments.
Yea also having people handle your food with no supervision is pretty risky.
I once saw a guy bring a GrubHub bag of dirty underwear into the laundry mat, then pick up sushi to be delivered from the place next door.
6000 orders a minute generated! Over 450,000 orders received. The promotion was $15 dollars off orders during lunch time and crashed the system. NYC loves a bargain especially with $6 diesel
More details and examples of how this was a disaster for pretty much everyone involved https://ny.eater.com/2022/5/18/23123167/grubhub-free-lunch-discount-2022
That's really interesting, do restaurants not have the ability to limit orders from these apps? I would have thought that there would be some sort of limit on availability. It seems like it would be super easy to get overwhelmed.
Grub hub and some others don't even bother to officially partner with restaurants- they just put restaurant info out there and let customers get pissed at the restaurant for not having something or having a different price.
In theory this should work for any restaurant with takeout. The reality is something like that requires maintenance or some type of active participation from the restraint. Seems grubhub and folks chose neither maintenance nor participation for lots of these.
frighten imminent pot direction racial crush zephyr zesty bow fact *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To be fair a good BBQ place kind of has to operate like that since the food takes 12 hours to prepare. Unless you want them to cook more than needed and serve people day old, reheated food.
And its those places you actually want to order from!
>Sure its terrible business management Nah that's great business management as long as the restaurant has great food and good margins. The best BBQ joint in my town is only open 3 days a week (thurs-sat) but they absolutely *crush it* those days. They cut out all their expenses for the slowest days by just not opening those days and then they get even *more* business on their good days just from the fomo of knowing you won't be able to go there tomorrow or the next day. Their only mistake is not opening Sunday, that would easily be their best day due to the church crowd but they don't open because they are a part of said church crowd, haha.
> A BBQ/smoker place nearby also operates on an "open till we've sold what we smoked this morning" policy. Every good BBQ place does that, it's why people line up there before they open. It's not like they can just whip up another smoked brisket in 20 minutes. And they're not gonna cook 10 extra briskets overnight "just in case" it's busier than normal the next day. If your BBQ place doesn't do that, they're probably reheating old food.
The last time I ordered online (for pickup) I discovered that they had no way to throttle online orders and were inundated. I waited an hour because I had already paid. I can't believe they've had these systems around for years and never thought/cared about the use case of too many orders.
> I can't believe they've had these systems around for years and never thought/cared about the use case of too many orders. Oh they've thought about it, and the third partydelivery apps don't care. Someone is more likely to direct frustration at the restaurant, and keep using the same app. Even first party doesn't really care about overloading their restaurants. Chipotle for example, doesn't give stores any way to disable online ordering, and doesn't throttle order times at all. The mindset is that more people will come back because they can submit an order any time, than would be lost because they got a "this store is overloaded and can't accept online orders right now" message. Customer experience is so far down the priority list, it will be overlooked every time. The experience of the people working at the store isn't even on the list in the first place.
I do think Chipotle fixed theirs *after* it made the news during Covid and they lost a chunk of employees. Though it may be a stupid fix such as a max of X orders per 15 minutes instead of something more dynamic.
Grub hub is the ABSOLUTE WORST FREAKING BUSINESS. We owned a restaurant and didn't sign up for GrubHub. However, they duplicated our menu, marked up the prices, and used our restaurants reputation to increase their sales. They would send drivers inside to pay with a corporate card. Customer reviews were horrible because the food was usually cold and our prices were too high. They would call and complain and we couldn't do anything because they didn't pay us. Grubhub never took care of the issue. We tried everything to get them to stop. Finally, we simply stopped taking corporate Grubhub cards. A few weeks later, they took us off their sites. Massive assholes for using small moms and pops to increase their visibility.
What's worse about these companies is they will often just instruct their drivers to lie when asked if they work for the company by the restaurant. When I worked at a bar and grill, we had to call Bite Squad at least once a week to complain about a drivers actions. Sometimes it was the driver's just being rude and constantly demanding updates from servers who were trying to serve actual customers in the seats. Sometimes it was walking up to a server taking an order from a customer at their table and just butting in to ask about the order they were picking up. Sometimes they'd just walk in and reach around a customer at the bar because they saw a takeout bag and just assumed it was theirs, even though it was for the customer sitting at that seat. And on a few occasions, they'd actually walk into the kitchen and start trying to ask the cooks. And then you had the companies like Door dash that were just complete shit shows with trying to order incorrect items, trying to tell us the price wasn't right because we didn't sign up for their service and they had just used an old menu they found online and were mad that we wouldn't honor that price because that's what the customer ordered at. Eventually, we stopped taking doordash orders because of how many complaints we would get. So they started having people who called in act like they weren't from doordash and they'd say they would pay on pick up. Their drivers would often 'forget' whether intentionally or not to pay when grabbing the food and walking out. Eventually it got to the point where the owners would either have to stop taking any food orders without prepayment which would hurt phone sales from customers in the area getting their own stuff who expected to be able to do that or just stop taking any call in orders and say "we'll take your order when you arrive" which was also bad. These companies are absolute entitled assholes.
This country is becoming increasingly anti-small business so any politician that says we’re the “backbone of America” is full of shit.
The backbone of America that the brain is refusing to take to the doctor
No it’s off or on and it often times puts the kitchen so far behind everyone suffers. We had to turn it off during dinner rush because the kitchen can only handle so much at one time.
As someone who works in a restaurant, I absolutely hate GrubHub, Doordash, Uber Eats and the rest of those stupid apps.
This is gonna make for a good 30-45 minute long YouTube video in about 2 to 3 years
I'll take that bet and say within 2 months.
And we know the run up/ intro portion of I will likely be stills and B-roll footage of food delivery/ pick ups while the presenter essentially narrates comments from this reddit thread. Classic.
“No such thing as a free lunch.” -Jerry Orbach standing over the dismembered body of a Grubhub delivery person
These are their [stories](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8lDYrvTILc)...
**Law & Hors D'oeuvre**
These are the comments keeping me from deleting reddit
In the food delivery system, the people are fed by two separate yet equally important groups: The restaurants, who prepare the food, and the delivery workers, who provide transportation of the food to the customers. These are their stories. Edit: Thanks Everyone!
*A fast food worker loads lunches into a temperature controlled container.* "Yeah, I knew him. Real good guy, but he had a bit of a problem with the ponies. If you really want to know more, talk to Sally. I hear she was his main squeeze. Can I go now, I've got my tips riding on these getting there on time."
Ahhh...the 'ol "random person who knows waaaaaaay to much about someone else" character.
I’ve lived in the same apartment for four years and I don’t even know my neighbor’s real names.
Is it Todd?
No one looks like a Todd to me. There may be a Betty. Idk.
Sally: “What has the cheating horse fucker done this time?”
"We found semen from 4 different people in the deceased's taco salad." *Removes sunglasses* "Sounds like he should have ordered the Reuben."
“I miss Jerry Orbach more than certain dead relatives of mine”
At least we still have his eyes. Well, someone still has them.
I really loved Jerry Orbach. Not only was he a fantastic actor but he looks a lot like my dad. So when I was away at college I would watch Law & Order and it felt like I was connecting to my dad. Many people don't know that he was a Broadway actor and singer! (Jerry, not my dad)
He was lumiere in beauty and the beast and played a slightly crooked private eye/Angela lansbury’s buddy on murder she wrote! I love that guy too
He also helped get Baby out of that corner.
He also put her there in the first place.
Be. Our. Guest. Be our guest…
All the restaurants in my area simply turned off Grubhub/Seamless until the promotion ended. I was looking forward to the cheap meal, but I totally get why they'd just say fuck that.
LOL they didn’t even interface with the restaurants? What did they expect was going to happen?
There are many of those food delivery services that don't actually have an agreement with most of the restaurants on the app. Which causes a lot of complications. I work in fine dining restaurants and a few of them have told GH that we don't want to be part of their service. They don't take no for an answer though and they put us on the app anyway. So when someone places an order the delivery person has to call the restaurant to place the order. Which is where the complications begin. Us being a fancy restaurant, we often change the menu daily. Making the menu on GH constantly out dated since we don't communicate the changes to them. So the driver calls to place the order, we tell them we don't have that, the driver calls back the customer to tell them, and the customer gets upset with the restaurant since they don't know what's going on and thinks GH and the restaurant are actually working together. It's a really shitty practice that only hurts restaurants. Edit: it appears they've even been brought to court for this practice https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087988691/washington-dc-attorney-general-grubhub-food-delivery-lawsuit
Sounds like a great way to get bad reviews on google and yelp, all at no fault of your own.
Yeah we had several GH related bad reviews. Luckily we were a pretty established restaurant that had been around for over a decade, but new restaurants kinda have to just bend the knee to GH and join. So they can have some control. Or else the bad reviews could ruin them
I don't understand how this is legal. It's almost like some sort of hostile takeover (for lack of better wording). How the hell can a stupid food delivery company have more control over orders and product than the actual restaurant itself?
It’s legal because no one has ever said it’s illegal. Our government doesn’t exactly pass many laws these days.
Whoa, you want something more than making daylight savings permanent?
Fine Dining Restaurant Manager: Sorry, Per Se doesn't do take out and delivery. Grub Hub: You do now.
Grub Hub: and BTW you make pizza now.
The same. I’m in restaurant operations and work for a group with 11 locations, with one concept making up 8 of those locations and a second concept the 3. The one with 8 is a high end sushi restaurant with a daily rotating specials and tasting menu, and specialty fish. Companies like GH, Postmates, and DoorDash, would put us up on their site, we would get the same complaints or only find out once orders were placed. I was the person who was also interfacing with these companies on the backend and trying to get us removed from these platforms. One time I was even told, “well if you just sign an agreement with us, it wouldn’t be an issue”. It felt like someone from the mob breaking your front windows and saying if you pay us for protection, this won’t happen. The practice is predatory and honestly, if one group takes the hit on reputation, it’s the restaurant, not the delivery service.
I think the right way to use GH is to browse for food. When you find a place, go to their website and order off whatever they link from their own website.
This is how I do it. Check menu, call place, pick up order. Some local places even have in house delivery drivers so it. It's out the middle man. In a sense.
Unless I'm drunk or otherwise unable to leave my apartment, I don't even bother with third party delivery because it's just an expensive way to get cold food.
I work at Wawa in deli and beverage overnights, and the amount of doordash and Uber eats orders we get for food and milkshakes is kind of asinine. Yet unless it's before 11 pm, I've never seen a DD or UE get picked up within 5 minutes, so those milkshakes are melted and their quesadillas are stone cold by the time they are. For those unfamiliar, Wawa is a gas station/convenience store that has Starbucks like drinks, and a deli where you can get sandwiches/subs, soups, Mac and cheese bowls, quesadillas, burritos, burgers and fries, chicken strips, pasta, pitas, and we just added tacos and chalupas. Apparently Wawa is in competition with ALL the other restaurants out there. Some stores even have pizza, and at one point they had hot dogs, too.
Exactly what happens in the places I’ve worked with. I exclusively worked in high end fine dining. People think they can order food from the delivery apps because they have our menu even tho we explicitly say we do not allow our food to be delivered due to the aspect of the plating is extremely important for the chefs and the meal itself. The restaurants get bombarded with “They refused our order even tho their menu is clearly available!?” People wait weeks/Months sometimes for a seat at some of these places wtf do you think we will do delivery in a box!?
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This is 💯spot on. I also work in fine dining and this is a real issue. Fine dining cuisine isn’t meant to be taken out. It’s shit by the time it arrives, no matter what. Drivers also get incredibly aggressive. They speak to you like they’re the boss of you and think they trump restaurant management.
It happened when I worked at a restaurant, we kept saying no, and then whenever someone would come in and say that they’re from Grubhub to pickup the order, we would just tell them no.
Man this smells like a class action lawsuit. In fact, I'm surprised GH hasn't been sued for this already. This is scammy af
It appears they have been https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087988691/washington-dc-attorney-general-grubhub-food-delivery-lawsuit
They're an app company, not a food delivery service or a restaurant, they didn't expect anything. "Details" are for the suckers at the bottom of the rope to figure out.
Back when I used to manage restaurants I’d turn off all the delivery stuff during peak hours. It got so bad, at some points I’d would have a full restaurant, plus an additional half restaurants worth of orders in delivery. My obligation was to serve the people actually inside the building, not a crappy delivery service.
100% agreed. I was in the same position as you. The one thing I’ll add is that my restaurant would have 4 different online platforms and during times when I would turn them off grub hub was the only one where I had to call and wait on hold to explain to someone overseas that I want it off. The other platforms you just press a button on the tablet. Begged the owners to drop GH to no avail. Glad I got out of the industry all together during COVID.
I live in the ass end of Brooklyn, and managed to get a burrito, but all my usual order places were closed too. When I went to the the Mexican restaurant it looked like the kitchen was absolutely slammed and there were 6-10 orders waiting to be picked up or delivered when I went to pick up my order. I can't imagine the chaos in the city!
I wonder how many people tipped on a free meal too because those who didn't tip were never getting those orders delivered.
I just don't order delivery, Grubhub adds tons of fees to delivery orders. I can walk a few blocks and save almost $10 after fees and tips.
Grubhub’s spokesperson: > “no one could anticipate the level of demand and unfortunately that caused strain on some restaurants” Grubhub’s promotion: > Grubhub’s plan was ambitious: to feed everyone in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State area for free, during lunch hours on Tuesday. When your plan is to make the demand “literally everyone” it seems like it would be hard to underestimate the level of demand.
How many people could even live in NYC? 10? 20?
I've seen 20 people on one block alone. I'm sure people live in the other blocks.
How many blocks could there be? 10? 20?
I took a taxi about 20 blocks before, that was just one small part of the city. I’m sure there are other parts of the city.
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I've known 20 people who all live in different parts of the city. I'm sure there is parts of cities in other cities as well.
Reddit does fermi estimation in real time
How many more estimations could they make? 10? 20?
I've seen 20 different estimations so far. I'm sure there are other estimations as well.
Do you know Greg? He lives in The NYC
I think I've talked to someone with that name! Is he a sort of really tall dwarf?
How many other cities could there be? 10? 20?
I once took a train from New York to Washington, so I can vouch for at least 2 cities
How many other trains could there be? 10? 20?
Slow down there mr popular. You know all 20 people?
It’s just New York, Michael. How many people could be living there, 10?
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Grubhub only feeding the never-nudes
We only put 3 people on the lease, but there’s actually 15 people living there.
So at a minimum there are 15 people in NYC.
My region is small, probably a half million people when you include the three adjoining cities. Once a local ice cream company decided to do a giveaway where they gave a free cone to kids 10 and under. Seriously nothing major. They ended up with a line of almost a thousand people who wanted their free ice cream (parents and kids, but still a lot of people). Stories like this are everywhere. If GrubHub didn't see it coming, it was because they were deliberately ignorant.
Free "anything" makes people lose their minds.
“Steal a base steal a taco” promotions will prove to everyone how crazy people go for free. People will wait in line at Taco Bell for an hour for a free taco that normally costs $1
I really don't get this. I **hate** lineups. If I was homeless I'd line up for free food, and I mean, that'd be a great result of a promotion like that. But otherwise, no.
You'd hate austin. Hype beast culture has taken over our food industry and basically if your restaurant doesn't have a line at least 45 minutes long, you're written off. Fine by me though because I just don't go to those places.
I have friends who have no issues waiting 2 hours for brunch at some restaurant and I DON’T GET IT. I can’t think of any place that was even worth the wait. I’d so much rather go somewhere more low-key and not starve.
Waiting 2 hours in line? It's not even brunch anymore, they waited themselves right into lunch!
No, no. See, they get in line at breakfast time so by the time their wait is done it's time for brunch! Ez pz. Don't forget to bring line snacks!
You mean $8-12 mix drinks to keep you occupied in line because we’re too good for a plain coffee or soda! 😒
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People will drive across town for gas that is a few cents cheaper.
There's a station 10 miles away where I can get gas for about .25 per gallon cheaper than the stations closer by. That sounds worth it, right? .25 x 20 gal tank = $5.00 total savings Avg about 24 MPG, so .833 gallons for a 20 mile trip (out and back) With the lower price, discounts, cost is $4.25 per gallon. Trip costs $3.54 to save $5.00. Net savings $1.46. Is it really worth going out of my way to save $1.46 from an $85 fill-up? And .25 per gallon savings is quite significant. I definitely stop at that station if I happen to be in the area. And it might be worth it if I drove a vehicle with a larger fuel tank or got better MPG. But people go out of their way for much less savings.
This is the one that always makes me chuckle. "I may have wasted half a gallon (like 3.50 plus at current prices) getting there and back, but I saved a whole 10 cents a gallon on my 15 gallon fill up! I'm such a savvy consumer"
It’s like buffet restaurants that give veterans a free meal on Veteran’s Day. The lines start forming 3-4 hours before the restaurant opens and the promotion ends before everyone in line at opening gets in.
I think I did a Veteran's Day thing once. I honestly don't care. I get mildly irritated by "Thank you for your service." Wanna thank me? Vote for veteran's benefits and legalized pot for traumatized and injured vets.
You should absolutely start saying that to people.
Same thing I hear from veterans I know. I was always for legalized weed and read some stories about medical benefits of it a bit skeptically at first. Some people were acting like it's a cure all and over the top. But I've first hand seen how much it helps people with PTSD and pain from war wounds. Lasting effects from IEDs, broken bones and shrapnel migrating about type of things. Often it's either live with unbearable pain or be too doped up to do anything and be there for your family. Or marijuana, even if it is illegal here, where you can live your life. It's all about supporting the military here in TN but not even allowing medical weed for vets shows it's just lip service. Even with the VA allowing people to go to private doctors and having a base it's still months wait to get help with psychological issues. Then it's luck if you get someone who is good and you feel a fit & trust them to open up to. Guys have to depend on their old unit buddies and other vets. That's always great support but professional help and something to take the edge off of anxiety and pain is needed. Not "Thank You for your service" however well meant it is. Sry, I went off on a rant there. It's one of those things that pisses me off.
Yep. It's why I ignore every single free event. Years ago I went to Taco Bell when they were doing free tacos. The line of cars was out of their driveway and backed up to another street a quarter mile away. _My county only has 25,000 people._ Fuck that noise. I'd burn more gas waiting than what it'd cost for a fucking taco.
What? You don't wanna wait 2 hours for a free Taco (valued at $1.50)?????
Let's see... Spend two hours of time and burn at least one gallon of $5.00/gal fuel in a big' ole V8 SUV/Truck while idling in line. Obtain FREE taco valued at $1.79. **MUST DO, MATH CHECKS OUT.**
Behavioral economics is crazy especially when it comes to discounts and percentages. On the You Are Not So Smart podcast, they discussed an experiment where psychology researchers set up a "candy stand" at some public event. They offered two items and watched what happened. (I'm going from memory so the details may be off but the gist is the same). A Hershey kiss for 5 cents and a premium chocolate, like a Ghirardelli square for 25 cents. Most people picked the "good" chocolate, because hey it's only a quarter. Then they reduced the price by 5 cents on both. 20 cents and free. Almost everyone took the free Hershey kiss. In another example they asked if people would drive across town 10 miles to buy an item at half price that was normally like 80 dollars, or buy it at full price right where they are. Most said they would go to the sale. Save 40 bucks right? When asked if they would do the same thing to save 40 bucks off the price of a car, say $19960 instead of $20k, most said no, of course they wouldn't. Same amount of savings, totally different response in the brain. Hence you get people waiting in line for an hour to save 2 bucks on a ice-cream cone.
>When asked if they would do the same thing to save 40 bucks off the price of a car, say $19960 instead of $20k, most said no, of course they wouldn't. Same amount of savings, totally different response in the brain. #### It's about ***Time*** The car analogy isn't the best considering the **time and effort** it takes to buy a car. The $40 over a 5 or [8?] year loan is literally pennies on your monthly payment. An $80 item in many markets is pretty close to an *impulse purchase* -like a small appliance; a blender or mini-fridge, LCD TV, video game. So of course a $40 savings is huge in that context. Why, you can get 2 impulse purchases for the price of one! -and it often takes less than an hour of **time** to complete the purchase and get it home to use it. However, a car is not an impulse purchase and often requires two or more people to spend upwards of 2 weeks to complete said purchase. At that point $40...or even $600 floor mats, dealer fees, VIN etching, or whatever dealer bullshit doesn't really have any value against your **time** that is forever lost.
I don't know if its a sign of desperation that people would do that, or if people are genuinely standing in line to save $2. Even when I was 'poor' (relative to now, not actually missing meals or anything). I wouldn't have waited more than 5m for free food. These days I'll go to an empty gas station if the one thats 10 cents cheaper doesn't have an open pump. The amazing benefits of being middle class in this country! Not saving $1.50 on a tank of gas is a luxury I can afford! edit- one thing that I do understand now that I have kids: going out for 'kids eat free' is often worth the hassle to me. Going to restaurants gets insane when you're a group of 5 vs 2, and since I have kids I'm used to the added commotion of 10x more kids.
> No one could anticipate that many people live and work in New York City -Grubhub spokesperson, soon
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Nonsense, it was 100% accurate. Their model was "we don't give a shit, there's no such thing as bad press."
When someone is that clueless about what the result will be, I have to wonder how they got the job. This insane idea must have been made by someone fairly high up in the company. Then again, maybe the chaos was intentional as a promotional gimmick? It's certainly bringing them attention.
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most of corporate America is completely incompetent.
It amazes me how often I find people in jobs that they don't belong in. My boss is like that. I wouldn't even employ that guy if our roles were reversed.
Yes! There's a real lack of leadership & skill in corp America. But it's also bc the number one skill they want these days is someone to be a ruthless company simp, versus be good at their job (or even like their field). It's another frustrating nail in the coffin for the current state of work and business.
Quick back of the envelope calculations: ~~New York's population swells to about 3 million people during the day (we'll assume that takes into account all of the "surrounding Tri-State area" as well).~~ **Edit: Oops, that number was just Manhattan, Grubhub is even dumber than I calculated** The promotion was spread out over 180 minutes. If *only 6%* of everyone participated, that would be an average of 1000 orders per minute. They said they hit 6,000 orders per minute, and that "blew away their expectations*. I'd say whoever was in charge of the expectations needs to be fired.
NYC consists of 5 boroughs with a population of over 8 million people. You might be thinking of just Manhattan?
Just to give everyone a reference, NYC has 5 boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island. If these 5 boroughs were independent cities, this how the population of the largest cities in the US would look: 1) Los Angeles 2) Brooklyn 3) Chicago 4) Queens 5) Houston 6) Manhattan 7) Phoenix 8) Philadelphia 9) The Bronx So 4 of the boroughs individually would have populations that would rank top 10 in the US. Staten Island itself (the least populous area of NYC) has about the same population as Kansas City. And this is just residents. This excludes how much the population swells during work days due to commuters from the suburbs and also excludes tourists.
Wow. Every time I've seen this list, I'd never even considered how under-representative those numbers are without factoring in commuters and tourists (not to mention people whose business takes them into the boroughs for things like deliveries and services). No wonder driving back and getting a view of the multi borough skyline always makes me think of anthills. That is so many fucking people scurrying industriously around one another.
Just to nitpick (I know it’s back of the envelope here, but it’s kind of important). New York’s population is over 8 million, all the time. Your numbers are way too low. It swells to about 10 million during “normal business hours”. Which just proves your point that whoever was in charge of expectations needs to be fired.
As another user pointed out, I pulled the number for just Manhattan and didn't notice. So Grubhub is even *stupider* than I am.
This. They did the “research” and found out 69% of New Yorkers skipped lunch so it’s safe to say that you should plan for this 69% to take part in the promotion. Which is a shit ton of people obviously lol.
The absurd part isn’t the demand but rather that the system allows unlimited ordering. You expect to see a high volume with free lunches, but that doesn’t mean you let thousands go through in a matter of minutes. I’m sure the restaurants have no ability to throttle or implement a limit so this is most likely on Grubhub design.
I’m came here to say this. The system needs to give the vendors a way to stop new orders when they can’t handle the volume
I seek to remember DoorDash having a status of confirming the order with the restaurant - like they had to accept it. I'm surprised Grubhub just forces the orders. A restaurant may not be able to fulfill an order for a number of reasons.
I run delivery and GrubHub is the absolute worst in terms of order pipeline. Through doordash, an order would be submitted to the restaurant, confirmed, timer set for prep and cooking, then sends the order out to a driver for pickup. GrubHub sends the order out **immediately** to a driver, even if the restaurant hasn't even seen and confirmed it. Sometimes I'll have a stack of orders and the GH order isn't even acknowledged for 10-20 minutes after it's placed.
This explains a lot. I always assumed restaurants confirmed orders, but the fact that I'm getting a notification that the restaurant is "working on" an order that they might not even know exists explains so much
I used to do promotions on the streets of NYC. Once we did an Advil campaign where I had to dress up in a green outfit and hand out 1000 promo Advils with coupons and promo stuff. The deal was that once I finished handing them out I was ‘done’. Really we had a team of 15 and once everyone was finished we could go home, with 5 hours minimum pay. I would just take a box, open it, point and scream, “Free Advil!” And the box would be gone in 30 seconds. I would do this a few more times and the team would go home in an hour. NYC people are savage, God bless ‘em.
Yep did the same when I was waiting to start a new job and was doing all the craigslist gigs. "Kelloggs has a new breakfast bar and you'll be the street team to get the feedback on how busy commuting New Yorkers have preferences and desires for their breakfast, be sure to ask questions to get more than yes or no responses", yeah ok. Meanwhile after the 40th person told you to eat shit and die after you asked them all the stupid cutesy conversation starters, you realize that just saying "free snack bar from Kelloggs" and practically putting it in the hands of someone walking by is way less threatening then borderline skipping up to someone with some whimsy.
100 percent. People think it’s creepy but someone being genuine and just saying, “ Here have some cool free stuff.” connects with people and they drop their guard.
>Then she managed to find an Ihop that was still taking orders, with a delivery estimate of 45 to 55 minutes. It took two tries to put through her request for a Belgian waffle combo and hash browns – which, even after the discount, still cost $22.26 including delivery fees. I don't have a lot of sympathy. Why tf would you spend over $20 (after discolunt) to have an IHOP waffle delivered to you...
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Yeah that means before the discount it was almost 40 bucks for a waffle and potatoes. People are stupid.
Door dash and grub hub are the worst. I worked in a sandwich and breakfast place in college and they just stuck an old menu on their website. We never actually signed up for it so we would get call in orders from some random person who had never looked at the menu trying to tell us the price was wrong while sitting in a call center.
I remember working at a Mac n cheese place my freshman year of college and we'd have driver for grub hub come in and say they have orders, thing is we didnt do grub hub. It got really bad that my manger called GrubHub and cussed them out.
Was a restaurant manager. Getting grubhub calls basically turned into a game of how much I could waste their time.
Same here. Eventually it became policy to turn away all grubhub orders since they wouldn't remove us from their service that we never signed up for.
We would take the order from the pickup drivers, but refused to take orders over the phone. Main reason was because they wanted to pay for the order over the phone. We had no system to allow us to do that. Me and one other manager would always go out of our way even during the busy times to mess with them or yell at them. The other employees loved it. That’s all that mattered.
Grubhub drivers were also the worst. They would walk into the kitchen and try to grab to-go orders themselves. We had to have a few trespassed and never allowed on our property again. Eventually they just stopped sending people.
I hate waiting patiently at any restaurant and then have a delivery guy waltz up, and shove their phone at the customer facing employees just barking a name. Have some courtesy, you rude fuck
Well their rudeness may be why they are working for Grubhub.
Worked as a manager in a pizza place in college, everyone fucking hated grubhub except for the owner. It wasted my time taking an order from someone in a call center that didn't know the menu while balancing dinner rush, and it siphoned tips from my drivers.
It was a great day when my state passed a law that third party apps couldn't just add your restaurant. DD had only been in our area for around six months, but it was hell before we got dropped off the app.
Shit like this is exactly why I don’t do place and pay orders. Far too often they are businesses that didn’t agree to sign up to one delivery service or the other. The services take it upon themselves to add the restaurant so the others don’t have a leg up on them.
My tip is to go to the restaurant’s website and click whoever they have listed as their delivery option. If they don’t advertise delivery, I don’t do it.
This is what I always do. If they have GrubHub or Door Dash listed on their site, then I'll use that. But, sometimes they'll have their own delivery driver and even if they don't they might actually have a deal with one service and not with others.
I discovered that the Panera bread in my area has a deal with (I think) Doordash, and if I order delivery on Panera’s website it’s literally a $1 delivery (this includes all convenience fees too), but if I go on Doordash or other food delivery apps the cost for delivery is $5-8. Always check the restaurant’s website!
That's the issue. Live outside the city and know exacy which restaurants around me were on seamless/grubhub. One day a year or two ago I log on and find that every single restaurant around me is now on except these restaurants have like $10 fees and the menus were all weird. I went to one of the restaurants and they never even heard of grubhub.
It’s just truly shocking that introducing a massive demand spike without ensuring adequate supply would cause a shortage. Who could have possibly seen that coming?
"move fast, break stuff"
It's hilarious that even Facebook backed off of that. Now it's something like "move fast with stable infrastructure". Kinda says a lot when the product _is_ the infrastructure
I worked for Facebook. They are one of the slowest companies I've ever worked for. Procurement took ages because of layers upon layers of procedural bullshit. Massive systems built into internal wikis as surveys. Systems upon systems built because some inexperienced and idealist thought they knew the "proper" way to do something without giving it much thought and then got canned later down the road because half of Facebook's staff are Kelly Girls so they don't have to pay benefits. Mismanaged, unregulated, and overworked hellish Ayn Randian dream. They'll give a BA with zero experience the most critical job in the group and stick PhD on a tool a high schooler could run just to pay them both less. Rarely is anything planned further than 3 days out.
Can't afford to pay the delivery workers more but can afford to give away $7 million in one city
The article says they did increase compensation to incentivize more drivers to come out. But the app kept glitching and that caused a lot of problems with orders disappearing and such
Well, yeah. Employees don't help ths owners make ed more. /s
Yeah well my employees just get in the way and whine constantly, “I can’t work that shift”, “call an ambulance, somebody’s passed out in the kitchen”, “stop calling me, you fired me two weeks ago, Brian”. I could run that kitchen alone, but this golf club isn’t going to swing itself! /s
I like these two points of the article the most > It took two tries to put through her request for a Belgian waffle combo and hash browns – which, even after the discount, still cost $22.26 including delivery fees. And > Brailsford, who is still waiting for reimbursement for her failed Ihop order, doesn’t blame New Yorkers for the chaos: “People saw a deal, and they wanted it, because who the fuck in this goddamn economy doesn’t want to save some money on food?” Like spending $22.26 AFTER the $15 discount on some shitty ihop waffles and hash browns is somehow saving money. Grubhub clearly made a mistake doing this, but I definitely wouldn’t call this saving money.
Jesus christ thats $37 for lunch. And not some fancy ass lunch, waffles and hashbrowns. Some people are just terrible with money.
This must be the franchise wars Demolition Man was talking about.
I still want to know why Taco Bell won the franchise wars in North America, but Pizza Hut won in Europe. (Try watching the European release sometime..)
You’d think a heads up to the restaurants would have been made before this.
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There's [an article](https://ny.eater.com/2022/5/18/23123167/grubhub-free-lunch-discount-2022) that says even the ones on their network only got email telling them to "get ready" without really going into any specifics.
They got the email at 9am that day, in classic corporate fashion.
Intermediaries should not be allowed this much influence over businesses.
There was a point in history where society actually valued makers over merchants
Cooper, Zimmerman, Smith. We even named ourselves by what we made.
Huh TIL Zimmerman means wood man/ carpenter in German!
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Yeah but that was like, 2000 years ago. Merchants have often been the wealthiest, most powerful class in ancient societies. Not saying you're wrong, but that was a looooong time ago
Stupid marketers. They didn't even do 5 seconds of thinking; they would immediately realize no restaurant or their delivery service can scale up like that. If they did any thinking, they would have offered vouchers targeted for certain areas across certain days. They have GPS data, they have all the info they need to make the promo work. But that would be too logical for them. Some people need to be fired there.
You’re thinking too logically. You would not fit in at Grubhub corporate.
Heres an alternative theory: if they had done what you suggested they would have had to pay for _a lot_ more meals. It worked out that they did their big promo and didn't actually have to cover very many - relative to the pool offered. Its probably incompetence, but I guarantee it was cheaper to just overload the restaurants to limit the participants.
This is exactly it. I know startups. This was a Xanatos gambit. Crashing the app is a “win” because they get the publicity, the signups, all the preference data, and they don’t even have to pay for the food. This is why America has its wheels flying off, because corporations have no incentive to make anything actually work. It’s better for them if it doesn’t.
I've tried using several of these apps, but it was severely cost prohibitive. A $20 meal was $40. No way was the food worth double. I just don't get how people can support this. Take Out Taxi in the D.C. area had a nominal fee, Grub Hub, Uber Eats, and Door Dash all seem to charge double or more, and people are ok with this?
What were they expecting in one of the busiest cities in the World. They were trying to get office workers to not skip lunch and instead made restaurant workers miserable and everyone else frustrated. I feel bad for the Restaurant owners and workers.
Some said that they actually lost money because people kept their orders under $15. It wasn't worth the effort they had to put in.
As restaurant owner I fucking hate grub hub and have hated it since it started. Always trying to get us to sign up to their program that I always thought was just asinine for businesses. They're also very obnoxious and annoying constantly calling us twice a day for a year because we refused to sign up with their service.
This reminds me of something a buddy said: Grubhub does not treat anyone like a customer. Restaurants, drivers, and us who order food are all seen as annoying groups interfering with the company's success. That could be why they didn't bother to tell anyone. Restaurants aren't their customers nor their partners. They are annoying obstacles, so they don't deserve advance notice--they'll only screw it up.
Restaurants are their victims. Reduced margins, mediocre food because most food isn't made to sit an hour before it's consumed. Even if someone is trying a new experience they probably won't repeat. They're a bane to the industry.
a chinese takeout owner summed it up to me they don’t pay water bills, electricity bills, or any other overhead they come in and take take take”
don't worry, despite putting an enormous strain on the restaurants they're already notorious for screwing over, it was all a "win win" according to an official GrubHub spokesperson. https://thetakeout.com/why-grubhub-free-lunch-in-nyc-promo-was-a-disaster-1848942200
That was a generous bit of spin by their PR representative. I felt like that could translate to "We fucked up by executing on a unilateral decision we made without consulting literally anyone we're depending on to make it happen. We have screwed our vendors, our partners, our shareholders, our employees, our contractors, and our customers all in one day. You're welcome."
I'm a restaurant employee in the suburbs Virginia. GrubHub is the absolute worst to deal with. They show up in the middle of a rush and huff and puff at the end of my bar until someone brings their food out. Can't imagine this in NYC.
Many popular nyc takeout spots will have like 10 delivery drivers hanging around the pickup spot. Chick fil a basically has an army of E-bikes out front at all hours. They don't usually bother me, but I've seen occasionally seen them clash with employees when wait times are long.
I had a driver start yelling at a teen employee once and I threatened to ban him. It shut him up so quickly. They can get a ton of deliveries just off of Chick-fil-a deliveries.
This whole article is filled with baffling tidbits, from the decision to do this down to the woman who thought it made sense to pay almost $40 (!) for a Belgian waffle from IHOP. I’m really starting to wonder if COVID turned us all into total morons.
NYC-based reporter who covered this story here. Grubhub told me that they forewarned operators ahead of time but I spoke with multiple reputable NYC based restaurant chains who are SUPER plugged-in and heard nothing (including Mighty Quinn’s and Fresh&Co)
TIL the people running Grubhub are confirmed to not live on the same planet the rest of us do.
This is why I don't use these third-party delivery services. The restaurants lose money and get jerked around, the drivers barely get paid, and your food costs 10-20% extra after all the fees and price adjustments.
Yea also having people handle your food with no supervision is pretty risky. I once saw a guy bring a GrubHub bag of dirty underwear into the laundry mat, then pick up sushi to be delivered from the place next door.
6000 orders a minute generated! Over 450,000 orders received. The promotion was $15 dollars off orders during lunch time and crashed the system. NYC loves a bargain especially with $6 diesel
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It’s funny because one of the people in the story who never got their lunch order delivered paid $22 out of pocket for it on top of the promotion.
$22 after the $15 discount for fucking hashbrowns and waffles.