Apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats provided restaurants with a flood of customers during the pandemic. Now, a number of food ordering tools, along with some restaurants, are finding ways to get around these apps and the commissions they charge.
DoorDash Inc., Eats and Grubhub Inc. of Uber Technologies Inc. can charge restaurants up to 30% of each order – a chunk that many owners say cuts profits even when more orders arrive.
A new crop of services is promising online ordering at lower cost to restaurants, allowing restaurants themselves to organize more deliveries.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Shake Shack Inc. and an increasing number of networks recognize the cost of application-based delivery orders, and many say they intend to address this. Local governments from New York to Seattle have imposed rules that limit application delivery fees in an effort to control restaurant costs while the health crisis keeps people at home.