Food Delivery and The Future of Restaurants

Yet, despite this new source of e-commerce demand, restaurants have struggled to keep up. The dominant reason is that restaurant demand is inherently “peaky.” It’s even more peaky now that delivery and pick up are turning restaurants into omni-channel retailers. Restaurants have fixed labor costs that do not scale up or down with volatile demand th... See more

It would be glib to suggest that most restaurants can survive by simply pivoting to delivery. Indeed, many won’t—and not just because some consumers might be afraid of lukewarm trout. The bigger problem is that the most popular delivery items (appetizers and entrées) tend to be the least profitable, while delivery consumers rarely order the higher-... See more

We know that the restaurant business already operates on thin margins and many struggle to survive. So when delivery services came along many were willing to pay the fee to try and increase business. It was only about 10–15% of their actual total revenue per month so for many it wasn’t a battle worth fighting — they just put up with the food delive... See more