Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonlaramburu | Hacker News Reader

Little Star Pizza is one, if not the best, pie in the Bay Area. It's very well known and loved. It is surprising that customers wouldn't be willing to order delivery directly from the restaurant, especially if they could pass along some savings.

View on HN

The article doesn’t say customers wouldn’t order directly from the restaurant.

I think that restaurants don’t want to hire their own delivery drivers and staff.

These Togo orders are basically “extra” that typically wouldn’t exist. And delivery companies know that. So it may be 30-50% of revenue but that’s in addition to what the restaurant would pull down as dine in only. Or just Togo where customers get it themselves.

I think there’s an opportunity for a more efficient Uber eats competitor that charges lower prices. But I think restaurants will just pay their fees.

In my area restaurants just keep jacking up their fees to cover commissions and people keep ordering. My favorite pizza place is $20 in person and $30 through Uber eats. They fired all their delivery people about two years ago.

People order McDonald’s for a $20 happy meal. So people just keep paying.

I wonder if mixed electric vehicles will help. An e-bike is a totally different cost factor than a full fledged car. Just zip around on an electric scooter, bike, or moped for delivery and it is cheap.

I don't think delivery is necessarily "extra". It must be cannibalizing some people that come to the restaurant, and that means they don't order the most profitable items on the menu: drinks.

A delivery service that uses those modes of transport might actually be cheaper and superior to all involved than the current ones in sufficient density areas. A scooter, blade, or moped can quick-park on a sidewalk a lot more easily.

My wife is one of the people that sometimes orders $20 McDs when I'm on the road for my job. It drives me nuts. Twenty fucking dollars for some of the worst food in America.

That is basically the main source of transport for these food delivery people in Barcelona. They're everywhere. Easier to buy an ebike than a car and often faster in traffic and for parking etc.

Glovo is a very successful business here and not without controversy but they're rarely using cars.

Bigger pizza chains use mopeds which are also often electric. Less local pollution and less noise - all round just better.

The idea that people would rather pay unknown extra dollars to middlemen to avoid picking up a phone and talking to someone for 2 minutes is so bizarre to me.

It saves you the trouble when your order goes wrong and way easier to argue/negotiate, it's the same reason airbnb works (else why wouldnt you just exchange number with the host and rent it directly)

I’m in my late 30s and this is how I know I’m old. Calling places is just so easy. I don’t understand the need to replace it with some new process.

As a non-native English speaker, calling places is absolutely soul crushing. People cannot understand my name, cannot understand me spelling it, and half of the time I cannot understand them back. Why have me call and tell you my name for you to be typing it when I could enter it in the computer myself?

I've also lived in countries where I'm not a native speaker, so I know how hard it is calling (much more so than speaking in person). But honestly this is a little irrelevant. The split between those who are fine calling and those who really want an app has basically nothing to do with language. Young people in the US often hate the idea of calling even if they are native speakers. That is what I don't understand. As a native speaker of English, calling places is just so easy. I don’t understand the need to replace it with some new process.

So yeah while I understand your issues, they simply don't explain this phenomenon when it comes to native speakers of English in the US.

That feels a little reductionist. You’re paying for stuff like order tracking, customer service, easy tipping, a way to talk to the delivery driver, and a centralized place to choose stuff. I don’t think those things are worth the price anymore, but they have value

Why? Phone calls are the worst. Car wrecks induce less anxiety, and I've been hit twice.

We have had online ordering for over decade now. Nothing magical or expensive in that tech...

Online ordering from the restaurant's designated website is fine, but ordering from a third party like Door Dash or Uber or whatever and their jacked up prices is weird to me.

I can call a pizza place and get a pizza delivered using the pizza restaurants' delivery person, or I can use a third party app and pay 100% more?

Or the restaurant could buy ready made solution or some relatively cheap solution that provides them this website. Then do the delivery themselves and only lose a bit on the order.

I wouldn’t pay extra for it (and don’t order food often, since it’s always cold and late), but ordering something over the phone can be rather difficult in America if you don’t have an American accent. Don’t even get me stated on drive-thru speakers.

The killer feature of Doordash is the fact that you can order in a structured textual form. The feature that kills it is their inability to provide a heat-preserving bag for drivers.

I honestly think the reason most food delivery used to be pizza, is because it actually tastes better when the cheese has cooled a little.

Little Star does not hold a candle to Zachary's. IMHO :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com