How Google, DoorDash, & Grubhub Conspire To Screw Local Restaurants

A lot of what you hear and read about the big delivery networks — DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, etc. — is that they’re a terrible economic deal for restaurants. It’s an especially tough tradeoff for neighborhood restaurants and startups, which don’t have much leverage or much profit margin to spare.

The problem for the restaurants is that the more successful the “aggregators” of customer demand become over time, the less power the restaurants themselves have individually.

For resilience in the future, restaurants are going to need to master takeout and delivery. The problem is those delivery startups like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Skip the Dishes take up to 25% of a restaurant's revenue. Restaurant profit margins are already razor-thin (3%-5% is normal). It's predatory for venture-backed delivery companies to be taking... See more

Many restaurants, especially the small ones that represent the majority of all eating establishments in the U.S., dislike delivery apps. They charge up to a 30% commission, which owners say is unsustainable. They also control data that would otherwise enable direct relationships with customers.