mindstalk | hot food delivery, then and now (Reply)

Food delivery apps (DoorDash, UberEats, etc.; hot/fresh meals ready to eat) today: expensive, annoying, yet somehow still not profitable for the companies, let alone good for the restaurant or drivers. Consumers do get a wide range of choice if they're willing to pay for it.

Food delivery in the past: remembered as better and sustainable somehow. What's the difference?

Most places didn't do delivery. Pizza was nearly universal (at least at some price level; I'm not sure if fancy places like Eduardo's in Chicago delivered.) Chinese was widespread. I've collected reports of Thai and Indian in some places. Allegedly, "everyone" in Manhattan, but that's Manhattan. The places that did delivery had food that was easily packaged, and robust to transport and re-heating, or even still tasty cold. Pizza, not steak or fish.
Restaurants with delivery had their own employees, who might have other duties when not delivering, thus avoiding wasted downtime like an app driver waiting for food to be prepared. (Also, those employees weren't necessarily paid legally. Teens paid under the table, or immigrant family members barely paid at all.)
Such places had delivery-heavy business, so often lots of orders going out at once; no driver wasting time going to a restaurant (or multiple ones) for pickup. I call it an airport shuttle model, vs. the current taxi or microtransit model.
Such places likely had restricted delivery zones, something you could traverse in 10-15 minutes. (Some Domino's data). Short trips, high turnaround. DoorDash tonight would let me order from at least 7 miles / 12 km away.
Even so, food delivery was a treat for most of us, not a daily occurrence.

And related to that last point, the pricing models were probably different. Not that I actually remember how pizza or Chinese charged, but Domino's still does its own delivery, for a flat $6 (5.99) charge. Order $12 of food, delivery is a 50% surchage. $24, 25%. $48, 12.5%. The more you order, the closer the cost gets to what pickup would have been. So, as I remember, people would tend to order a lot, either as planned leftovers or for a group or party. Ditto for Chinese: if you do it, you go all in that night, to pig out or save for later.

Whereas now? It can be complicated, with random promotions and a 'fixed' delivery fee that is often waived (promotions again, or DashPass subscriptions), but the dominant charge is a +15% service fee that DoorDash tacks onto everything. Ordering 8 Big Mac Meals would have the same delivery margin (percentage) as ordering 1. This probably has the effect of people being more willing to order a taxi for one burrito, because they don't have to feel as guilty about not getting two burritos, but also means that larger orders don't reliably get the benefits of scale that you would from Domino's.

So yeah. Pizza: multiple orders carried a short distance by an employee, with a fixed charge to encourage you to go big for efficiency's sake. Apps: outside driver going to random stores and waiting to pick up your food and carry it a longer distance, with percentage charges that defeat any impulse to be efficient.