When people started showing up at her restaurant looking for orders they said they’d placed, Carla Wade Logan got angry. “I wasn’t mad at the customers,” the owner of Carly’s Bistro is quick to point out. “I was mad at the delivery platform I never signed up for.”
Logan isn’t alone in her ire at DoorDash, a food delivery service headquartered in San Francisco. Other local restaurateurs are up in arms about what they say are DoorDash’s lousy policies and unprofessional approach to delivering dinner. Food is being delivered late, some say; DoorDash is publishing out-of-date menus; they’re under- and over-charging for entrees. And then there are the drivers who turn up looking for orders that were never placed.
The Dutchess County executive has signed an executive order capping third-party food delivery fees.
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro says the order supports local restaurants by temporarily capping service fees charged by third-party food delivery companies to no more than 15 percent of the cost of the food order. Third-party food delivery companies, such as Grubhub and Door Dash, have apps for ordering food online. And while these apps are vital for restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic, Molinaro says the fee structures, which can run as high as 30 percent for delivery orders, are cutting into local restaurants’ profits. His order also prohibits third-party delivery services from publishing restaurants’ menus on the services’ apps and increasing the price of a food item to include a delivery fee. Molinaro, a Republican, thanks Democratic County Legislator Nick Page for bringing the issue to his attention.
3:19
Schenectady County is the latest in New York to cap third-party delivery fees at restaurants during the pandemic.
The Schenectady County legislature approved a local law Tuesday, placing fee limits on third-party delivery services during a declared emergency.
County legislator Sara Mae Pratt…
“While third-party delivery services such as Door Dash and Grub Hub offer some benefits to locally owned restaurants, such as a boost in visibility and increased volume, the fees assessed on restaurants always left little-to-no room for the small business to profit,” said Pratt.
Pratt, a Democrat, is also the owner of the Puzzles Bakery and Café in downtown Schenectady.