GrubHub Was Getting 6,000 Orders A Minute During Its Promo Day, Overwhelming Restaurants (buzzfeednews.com) 54
A delivery app marketing campaign offering a "free lunch" -- aka a $15 promo code valid for three hours -- sent customers and restaurant workers alike into a spiral on Tuesday as thousands of orders jammed the system and disgruntled New Yorkers tweeted through their hunger pains. BuzzFeed News reports: GrubHub's New York City campaign on May 17 touted the physical and mental benefits of eating lunch, but yielded dozens of complaints, cancelled orders and service workers telling BuzzFeed News they were "exhausted" trying to keep up. GrubHub told BuzzFeed News that at times during the promotion that ran from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. the app was averaging 6,000 orders per minute.
"It got overwhelming," said Brandon Ching, who was working the counter at Greenberg's Bagels, a popular sandwich spot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. "We were short-staffed today so it really added extra stress to my day." And customers were frustrated at the delays. Ebenezer Ackon told BuzzFeed News he was in 3,630th place in line to talk to GrubHub's customer service when he gave up, after waiting more than an hour for food, and went to get something from across the street from his apartment. Blake, who didn't want to use his last name, said the small Brooklyn cafe he ordered from received 200 orders in five minutes as soon as the promo began, so they reluctantly had to cancel orders -- including his. [...] Customers may be frustrated about not getting a product they wanted, but for service industry workers it was a day of non-stop stress.
A spokesperson from GrubHub sent BuzzFeed News a statement following the fiasco: "It's clear, New Yorkers were hungry for lunch! While we knew 72% of New York workers call lunch the most important meal of the day, our free lunch promotion exceeded all expectations." Tuesday's campaign received six times more orders than a similar promo last year, they said. The company's statement mentioned that "initial demand temporarily overwhelmed" the app and served customers an error message that was "rectified so New Yorkers could enjoy their much-deserved lunch."
"It got overwhelming," said Brandon Ching, who was working the counter at Greenberg's Bagels, a popular sandwich spot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. "We were short-staffed today so it really added extra stress to my day." And customers were frustrated at the delays. Ebenezer Ackon told BuzzFeed News he was in 3,630th place in line to talk to GrubHub's customer service when he gave up, after waiting more than an hour for food, and went to get something from across the street from his apartment. Blake, who didn't want to use his last name, said the small Brooklyn cafe he ordered from received 200 orders in five minutes as soon as the promo began, so they reluctantly had to cancel orders -- including his. [...] Customers may be frustrated about not getting a product they wanted, but for service industry workers it was a day of non-stop stress.
A spokesperson from GrubHub sent BuzzFeed News a statement following the fiasco: "It's clear, New Yorkers were hungry for lunch! While we knew 72% of New York workers call lunch the most important meal of the day, our free lunch promotion exceeded all expectations." Tuesday's campaign received six times more orders than a similar promo last year, they said. The company's statement mentioned that "initial demand temporarily overwhelmed" the app and served customers an error message that was "rectified so New Yorkers could enjoy their much-deserved lunch."
GrubHub's outlook: (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, as someone who lives in NYC, everyone knows about Seamless (owned by GrubHub) so they didn't really need to do any promotion in the first place.
Re:GrubHub's outlook: (Score:5, Funny)
They "slashdotted" themselves!
Parasites (Score:5, Insightful)
GrubHub and related services are nothing but parasites on the restaurant industry. Their marketing tactics stink (of which TFA is yet another example). WTF did they think was going to happen?
The restaurant industry already lives on thin margins. Having these parasites sucking their blood does not help.
Re:Parasites (Score:4, Funny)
The restaurant industry already lives on thin margins. Having these parasites sucking their blood does not help.
Doesn't matter! Half a dozen people get really wealthy on "startup VC" and thousands of restaurants have to fire people and/or shut down. It's all worth it!
(not)
Re:Parasites (Score:4, Funny)
I think GrubHub is great. It's a one stop shop of lists of restaurants doing deliveries which allows me to quickly pick what I want to eat ... and then go to the restaurant's website and order directly so that these fuckers don't skim money off the top.
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You need to get out of you Mom's basement and out from behind her dress & apron strings once in a while. The world out there is pretty darn kewl.
You're far closer to your mother's basement than I am to mine. I know that for a fact because any direction I travel in on this earth would put me closer to her since the world isn't flat.
But nice try. Not sure why you think your lame attempt at an insult is relevant though. Do only people in mom's basement care about 3rd party skimming and ruining the food industry? Do only people in their mother's basement order food, or dislike Grubhub?
I get it you were trolling, but it was a bad troll. You've just left
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TANSTAAFL (Score:3)
There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Please don't use these services (Score:5, Informative)
I was talking to a local restauranteur about food delivery services. She said restaurants often take a loss on these orders. The food service industry is a cut-throat business with very slim margins, and the delivery services charge the restaurant 30% which is often well-over the profit margin. The service also charges the customer whatever they want to for the meal...the restaurant has no say in it. Services like GrubHub also strong-arm restaurants into using their services with nasty calls and tactics. She told me it was pretty awful until she relented, just to get some cash-flow during the pandemic shut down.
Food delivery services really are vile people. If you like a particular restaurant, you're probably doing them a disservice by them. Go out, say hello, get to know the people who make your food. You will generally get better service, better food, and better prices.
Re:Please don't use these services (Score:4, Informative)
GrubHub also does shit like mark a restaurant as closed even when its open because there are no drivers available.
Re:Please don't use these services (Score:4, Interesting)
These are food delivery services. But their prime value is in being a centralized food ordering service. If it was just as easy to order delivery direct from the restaurant, I think people would. I'm just shocked there hasn't been a startup that is trying to essentially broker online ordering without providing delivery themselves. Everyone knows they're getting ripped off by the overinflated menu pricing and that they're taking a cut from the restaurant and adding a delivery fee on top of that, while providing little if any to the driver if you separately tip. I live in an area where it is easy to go pick up food myself, but restaurants just have terrible online ordering platforms if at all - for some the only way to order online is to go through an app. Call-in orders used to be the norm, but I'm not keeping paper menus nor do I have up to date pricing. Or time to waste with a phone call if I'm unsure where I want food.
What I don't get is how these services are still losing so much money despite charging such high fees. It can't just be stupid giveaway day promos.
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Surely they support a hybrid model where you use their website to view the up-to-date menu and pricing and then phone them to order?
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I have done that many times because if there is one thing I will credit to the food apps for is they have a consistent way to browse menus but that said the pricing is usually distorted on the app versus what they actual charge.
I understand many places for having an up to date website but easiest thing in my opinion for them to do is just take decent photos of your menus and post them on Google Maps, Yelp, etc. That is generally the first place I go to now to see what's on offer and you can also get photo
There's always pizza (Score:2)
If it was just as easy to order delivery direct from the restaurant, I think people would. I'm just shocked there hasn't been a startup that is trying to essentially broker online ordering without providing delivery themselves.
There is such a startup, for pizza at least: Slice [slicelife.com]. They provide the ordering site and handle payments for thousands of pizza shops.
I think it works for pizzerias specifically because most have been delivery/pickup since inception, and most already have their own delivery drivers.
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These are food delivery services. But their prime value is in being a centralized food ordering service. If it was just as easy to order delivery direct from the restaurant, I think people would.
It still is, and people do. All the time.
Let's just say the rest represent a level of newfound laziness that is highly profitable, which is putting it kindly.
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I can tell when a selfish clod doesn't run a restaurant (or work in one).
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Re:Please don't use these services (Score:5, Insightful)
I get similar stories from local restaurants I frequent. Don't use third-party delivery services. They are parasites.
And you know what?
Almost every single restaurant has a take-out service, even if it is unofficial, and especially for good customers. All you need to do is go to the bar and ask the bartender. Or maitre'd, if it's a nice enough place to have one. About half the time, I'm given a gratis beer while I'm waiting for the meal (at the end of giving my order, I usually say, "and can you add a beer for while the food's being made?" ... sometimes that gets added to the bill, sometimes it gets comped; the bartender gets tipped either way).
Irony (Score:3)
They are parasites.
Says the guy who proudly describes how "about half the time" he gets beer without paying for it by making it sound like a casual request put in after his food is ordered. FFS man, if you ask them for a beer, then pay for it. And the fact that you tip the bartender does not compensate for your ploy. You should be paying for your beer AND giving a tip.
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No, you got it wrong. I order a beer. I don't ask for one for free. Maybe you don't understand how barkeeping works? Each member of staff has a certain number of drinks they can comp per shift. Some places have a strict number, some places are less strict. The establishment considers this a cost of attracting repeat business. A good customer, a potentially regular customer, knows that a comped drink is an offer from the bartender, and the appropriate response if you want to accept and build the relatio
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I'd rather not go inside (*covid*) so just give me a walk-up window like they have at the local amusement park. No, I don't like wasting ga$ sitting in the drive-through.
Food trucks would be fine, too, just park one next to the local park every day at the same time so the community knows what time to gather there. Maybe switch it up with a different food truck every day. And we would all get to know each other better.
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Almost every single restaurant has a take-out service, even if it is unofficial, and especially for good customers. All you need to do is go to the bar and ask the bartender.
This is the way.
When Ms. BFM is out of town on one of her (now more frequent) world-saving business trips, BFM Jr. and I like to play bachelors and hit up some of the local restaurants for carry-out. Walk in, sit at the bar, ask if they have anything new on tap, and a lemonade or Sprite for Jr., and look at the carry-out menu. We hang, maybe watch some sports, chat with the bartender or other patrons (good social practice experience for Jr.). And walk out with a few bags of hot food to eat at home while w
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and the delivery services charge the restaurant 30% which is often well-over the profit margin.
I can only recommend if you find something you want to eat on GrubHub, check if the restaurant itself offers delivery. In many cases they do via their website and then these fuckers don't skim the 30%.
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I see a lot of resteraunts say "Delivery though Doordash/Grubhub/etc". No one is forcing businesses to join this service or not hiring their own drivers.
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I see a lot of resteraunts say "Delivery though Doordash/Grubhub/etc".
Well by all means if that is what they are going for then that's their choice. Many don't and offer their own delivery services.
No one is forcing businesses to join this service
Clearly you've not been paying attention to how this industry operates.
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I suppose it's better than the companies selling poison to baby formula because they were too cheap to keep there factories clean, but only just.
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I do some delivery for these types of services (although honestly, I signed up to do GrubHub and just kept the free "hot bag", but never did any work for them because of them not allowing you to jump in and "drive on demand", vs requiring you to schedule time slots in advance).
If restaurants are really losing money taking food delivery orders from these places, the obvious thing to do is to cancel that relationship with them. (Many do! I remember doing Door Dash before and getting orders for this local sand
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If you like a particular restaurant, you're probably doing them a disservice by them.
I don't like using third party delivery services for a restaurant.
However, 9 out of 10 times restaurant "Order" button directs me to some random third party service. Often not even GrubHub but some other third party. I am not sure why.
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You will generally get better service, better food, and better prices.
Family owns restaurants for 50 years; the first two, 100%. Better prices? We don't lower or change our prices for in-house or delivery dining. That is stupid.
Unbelievably bad design (Score:5, Insightful)
I know they don't know the rest of a restaurant's order count, but they should definitely rate-limit themselves to no more than the estimated capacity of the restaurant to take orders. Letting a restaurant get hundreds of orders deep in five minutes just shouldn't be possible. This has to end up being bad PR for them in the end, because it just highlights the problems they cause.
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People won't forget that they couldn't get their free lunch and will blame the restaurant "responsible" for not providing it. They'll post negative reviews, moan on Twitter, etc.. They might even go as far as threatening to sue, because nothing brings out the entitled asshole as much as not being able to redeem a coupon for free stuff.
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You've clearly never - ever - worked a job that involves dealing with the public.
Which is good for all those employers.
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They can most certainly know the restaurant's order count from their own app. They can most certainly have a maximum concurrent order restriction.
Thing is, they don't care, as the restaurants will get the blame for anything going wrong.
TANSTAAFL (Score:1)
A delivery app marketing campaign offering a "free lunch" -- aka a $15 promo code valid for three hours -- sent customers and restaurant workers alike into a spiral on Tuesday as thousands of orders jammed the system and disgruntled New Yorkers tweeted through their hunger pains.
Once again proving there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
A spokesperson from GrubHub sent BuzzFeed News a statement following the fiasco: "It's clear, New Yorkers were hungry for lunch! While we knew 72% of New York workers call lunch the most important meal of the day, our free lunch promotion exceeded all expectations."
So long as lunch was not an expectation.
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So long as lunch was not an expectation.
Reminds me of a quote I heard somewhere. "Every time you clog a toilet you've exceeded someone's expectations." (Something like that, anyway.)
Typical lazy Americans (Score:2, Interesting)
Willing to pay twice the cost of the food just so they don't have to waddle their fat asses down to the restaurant and pick up their own order.
Then they complain they're always short of money.
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So because Americans are too inept to have decent working hours they become too lazy to make their own food or, if they work in the office, stop on the way home and pick something up (which is still cheaper in most cases than paying to have it delivered). In other words, my original comment about always being short of money stands.
Walking to a restaurant w
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Hahaha, as if where you live doesnt have delivery apps for food.
Oh and we're all fat? Got news for you if you're Australian (as your handle implies), your country isnt all that less obese then the US anymore. At only a few points less than 1/3 of your population being obese you've got no room for throwing stones https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com] .
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It's funny that you think this is an American thing. The concept itself was developed by a Dutch company during the dotcom boom and became widespread in Europe long before Americans thought Uber Eats and GrubHub "invented" it.
Also who is complaining about money, and who is paying double the cost? Are you replying to the correct article?
Cheeseburger Cheeseburger. ... (Score:2)
... No Coke, Pepsi!