DoorDash, Postmates, GrubHub, UberEats, Eat24 & Other Meal Delivery Services
 

Anyone use these services?

I'm normally such a tightwad, I rarely (like 3-4 times a year) go out to eat at a proper restaurant. I occasionally go to Subway for lunch or McDonalds for an Sausage Egg McMuffin (like once a month).

I don't mind cooking (and I'm fairly good at it), but being single, a lot of dishes I'd like to have occasionally just aren't practical to make, and I feel "weird" eating alone at a restaurant (and I am a homebody).

In my area, there is a pretty wide variety of restaurants with different things I'd like to try on Postmates. Just wondered if anyone has tried it.

I used DoorDash a couple of times a week for about 2 years. Thought it was an excellent service and offered a wide variety of restaurants. When I started using them they were relatively new. I finally threw in the towel and started using Postmates. One thing I liked about DoorDash was the ability to plan the delivery in advance. I could select a time even a day ahead and could rely on the order arriving on time. They have completely fallen apart. The last few months I have received so many credits for their screw ups that I can't see how they are making money.
PostMates does not offer advance ordering but they are very very reliable. I can only speak for area in Southern California. Have no idea how they fare outside of my zip code. Another thing to consider is that DoorDash expects you to add a tip when you place the order. :td: PostMates sends an immediate email or text as soon as the order is delivered offering the option add the tip and rate your driver .

Are these services like Seamless, where you order food from a restaurant for delivery? We lived on Seamless when we were in NYC.

I can't imagine going out to eat quarterly. We have dinner out 4-5 nights a week...

Yep they are the same.

4-5 nights a week? Wow. Like I said, I'm a tightwad and just can't bring myself to spend the money when I have food at home. Plus ... truthfully, it isn't so much the cost of the food, but when I go out to eat I'm going to have a couple (or 5 ;)) drinks, and that ends up being more expensive than the food (which I find ridiculous considering how cheap restaurants probably get liquor), so ... just eat at home.

I eat out for things I would/could never make at home for a single person. Ribs/barbecue, Red Lobster (knock it all you want, but I love it - I can bake/grill perfectly good fish at home, but I can't deep fry it like they do), Chinese, etc.

Yeah, I was looking over our credit card summaries and we do spend a small fortune on eating out. Drinks definitely contribute a lot to that.

I've used a similar version, Doorstep Delivery, over the summer when I was living in Raleigh. I liked them, they sent me a lot of coupons which knocked down the delivery fee, the food usually came quickly and once when I had issues, they resolved it quickly. I also like that restaurants like the nearby wing joint or Mexican place that would never hire their own delivery driver now can arrange for deliveries.

My friend drove for DoorDash for a bit. Apparently he was given so few deliveries that it wasn't worthwhile for him to continue--and this was in a college area too (where one would think they'd get a good chunk of business from students). I'm betting they're having driver shortages in a lot of other locations too, which would explain their difficulty in delivering on time. :(

Grubhub rant
 

Last three tries [messed] up. Last time order placed, restaurant said they had no record of the order. Time before, order placed for delivery not pickup as requested. Tonight grubhub places order for MONDAY morning with a response the place is closed. Cancelled that and called the restaurant They're very open and claim GH had their hours wrong. Jumping the shark??

What is Grubhub? Obviously some sort of food place...

An app driven service that lets you order delivery or pickup. Except when they increasingly mess it up. You pay with a cc and the order is sent to the restaurant. Pretty cool, when it was reliable. I could order from my couch and get a text when it was ready.

Why would you use it for pick up as opposed to calling the restaurant directly? I would use them for delivery. I've used Door Dash and they have been fine.

I walk over and it's ready. No waiting. I could call, but when it works the whole menu is online and I pay with the CC. No calling, being placed on hold, being misunderstood, etc. instead I walk in the door, they hand me the bag, done.

I stopped using GrubHub when they stopped giving out coupons.

Eat24 gives $2 off $10 almost every weekend. In my area, almost every GrubHub participating restaurant is also on Eat24.

I ordered from GrubHub today and my order arrived on time.

I only use them to order from a couple local chinese places because they deliver with their own drivers so the fee is lower and more timely. The restaurants delivered by the grub hub drivers are usually very slow. They won't pick up the order until over an hour after it is placed. Sometimes the restaurant is already closed (according to the restaurant's website, not GH) before they pick up. If I were a restaurant owner I wouldn't put up with a delivery service making me wait 30 minutes after closing because their driver took an hour to get there.

The fees for the GH delivered orders also just skyrocketed to $6 or $7 per order ever since Doorstep Delivery pulled out.

Postmates has more places, plenty of $3.99 delivery fee places, and no minumum order. I don't like how Postmates sends the directions to the driver (although it is probably Google Maps' fault). If you type the address of my building into google maps directly it provides proper direction. When they send the coordinates (or whatever they send) through the API it sends the driver to the other part of the complex which isn't connected. I usually text the driver from the get-go to tell them to put the address in directly but they don't and I watch them drive around for a few minutes before reminding them to put the address into google/waze directly to find the place...then I dock them stars for not following directions. I also had one postmate driver who texted me every 2 minutes with the status. So annoying. I'm watching in the app so I know where you are.

So I mainly use GH when I want chinese or I order directly from Jimmy John's for sandwiches. That's the extent of my delivery now.

They have been taking a hit since their CEO's post-election rant.

I use FoodPanda in Thailand and would like to find a reliable service here in the US. GH is not an option for me.