Support Restaurants by Ordering Directly From Them
If you currently rely on food delivery to help you and your family cope with a situation where work and study is at home, or if you deliver food to elderly relatives and friends who need a little extra love and care, right now – there is one good a way to ensure that as much of your money as possible goes to the businesses you want to support.
Ordering directly from the restaurant.
Why? Because when you order takeout directly from a restaurant website or call to request pizza delivery, you’re excluding third-party delivery services hoping to get a piece of the pie.
You may have seen, for example, Grubhub’s recent announcement that it is “temporarily suspending up to $ 100 million in commissions from affected independent restaurants across the country.”
It’s good, isn’t it? Well, sort of. Many restaurants lose valuable dining income as people self-quarantine or practice social distancing, and Grubhub’s decision to suspend the commission it receives every time you place an order on Grubhub or Seamless (remember, they are now the same company ) will allow restaurants to have a little extra cash on hand during times of cash flow decline.
But Grubhub will eventually get that money. As the Devourer explains:
Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney said at a press conference at Chicago City Hall that the company is ready to postpone its $ 100 million collection of payments. The fees will affect restaurants across the country, not just some cities. Maloney said Grubhub went online on Thursday after officials from cities such as Chicago, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco and Atlanta discussed how they could help restaurants during the pandemic and reached out to the company. It’s unclear how long Grubhub will wait to collect fees from restaurants. One restaurant owner, who asked not to be named, said his Grubhub spokesperson called it an interest-free loan.
Which is not scary! We could all get a few more interest-free loans in our life.
But it’s also a good reminder that if you can order in a restaurant, especially a local restaurant, it’s a much better way to spend your money on social distancing.
And then you and your friends or family can join each other for a face-to-face virtual dinner over FaceTime.