Third-party delivery services are under attack after listing restaurants on their platforms with which they have no legal partnership. Toni Carr, co-owner of Strange Brew also
Video transcription
JULIE HYMAN: Well, this year, of course, we talk a lot about the increase in food delivery services. Of course, DoorDash went public. Uber Eats was very successful. But what did that mean for restaurant owners? Let’s talk to one of them now.
Toni Carr is co-owner of Strange Brew, a coffee shop in an Indianapolis suburb. And Toni, I saw a tweet you sent yesterday, I think it was, where you said you are not a member of Uber Eats, but it is listed on Uber Eats. And this is a phenomenon that we talked about a little in the program before, and that food delivery services have been criticized a few times. So, describe to us what exactly is going on here.
TONI CARR: Well, basically, a few months ago, we started having Uber drivers coming into our store trying to take orders that, of course, we didn’t have. And we checked on their website and saw that we were listed. So we immediately contacted them and asked to be removed. We were not brought down. Several months have passed. We send messages, emails, fill out your online forms at least once a week and nothing is done.
So, we have these drivers coming, you know, and, of course, my employees are trying to deal with it. They don’t understand what’s going on. There is no request because, of course, we are not an Uber Eats partner. Each time the driver tries to place the order, the card will be refused. And then we have a dissatisfied customer on the other side who is dissatisfied with us, thinking that somehow we were part of that.
– So, Toni, you got no response from Uber and the Uber team. Am I correct?
TONI CARR: We got it – it seems like a bot response, because they keep telling us to do the same thing over and over. They must complete this form online or provide us with the phone number associated with their account, which, of course, does not exist because we do not have an account with them. So it’s the same thing over and over and nothing is really resolved.
– So, how is your business doing – just because of Uber Eats and Uber Mobile, their lack of action, they are essentially hurting your business. I imagine you have these drivers entering your restaurant, in addition to the fact that we continue to deal with COVID. When we weren’t in COVID, you would have customers there, you would have people. And now you have these drivers getting there, essentially clogging up your restaurant.
TONI CARR: Yes, absolutely. And you know, since then we’ve kind of reorganized our restaurants. We have this small area for collection requests. And then they are blocking the collection order area for about 10 minutes while my employees may be doing something else. This tends to happen during a race. It takes 10 to 15 minutes of our time. And our other customers who are waiting there trying to take their orders or place their orders are suffering for it.
JULIE HYMAN: Toni, by the way, we should mention that we got in touch with Uber to comment on what’s going on. We haven’t heard from them yet. Why did you decide not to partner with Uber? And it’s my understanding that you also don’t have a partnership with some of the other food delivery services. And this is obviously a decision that many restaurant and café owners are facing during this period, especially when, in some cases, their physical locations are closed. Why did you decide not to partner with them?
TONI CARR: Well, right away, they take a large percentage. And when you’re in the food service, there’s no big appointment to start. In addition, we have our own home delivery. It’s in a smaller area because when you’re dealing with coffee, you want it to be fresh and warm. Therefore, we do our own internal delivery to make sure that we can control the quality of what is coming out.
– We were thinking and talking about why Uber would do that. Do you think Uber is just waiting for small business owners like you until you finally give in and accept their fees?
TONI CARR: I definitely think this is what is happening, because otherwise, we would be dealing with a big bore. But if we just accepted and became partners with them, then the problem side of it would go away. You know, we would take those orders and be able to get them out. But instead, a few times a week, we’re dealing with the problem of looking like we’re Uber Eats partners, but we’re not really partners.
– Would you give in to Uber Eats?
TONI CARR: Do not.
JULIE HYMAN: All right. Toni Carr, a short and sweet answer about that. Co-owner of Strange Brew. I will not partner with Uber Eats. We’ll see if we get some kind of response from the company, and we’ll update our viewers and update you too, Toni, if we get an answer from them. But thank you very much for joining us. It’s great to have a real-world example of something we’ve talked about and heard about before. Thanks.
TONI CARR: Thank you very much.