CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Since the pandemic has started people might have used a food delivery service app to get their favorite restaurant meals right to their door. Numbers show apps like Door Dash and Postmates have seen a surge in service since March.
But now, some local restaurants are asking customers to please pick up their orders themselves.
Many of the local restaurants preparing those meals, the outside delivery services aren’t delivering on the service they hoped for.
Chris Soto at Stomp Chomp and Roll said, "We take this very serious, we take access very serious, we take health and wellness very seriously, food safety and sanitation."
This is why many restaurants are calling on customers to ditch those delivery services and order directly through them.
"We’re talking about value not only in instant money but also value inexperience," said Soto.
Soto handles marketing for local restaurants: Pizza Peel, Flying Biscuit, and The Improper Pig.
They all share a concern that some of those drivers may not be using the same care and safety you’d receive in the restaurant.
Meanwhile, customers at home are paying a premium for the service and so are the restaurants.
"It has really made us really turn inward and say are we being good stewards?" said Soto.
Restaurants typically operate on razor-thin margins, now the pandemic taking an even bigger bite out of their bottom line.
Soto breaks it down: 30 percent for food costs, 30 percent labor, which leaves 40 percent to cover everything else, rent, operations, utilities.
The four biggest restaurant delivery companies take-out an average of 25 percent of every order, leaving the restaurants with scraps.
"While it’s great to get that reach and it’s great to get that marketing it does not come without a big-ticket cost," said Soto.
The Pizza Peel and Taproom, Flying Biscuit, and Improper Pig now dishing up their own delivery option, encouraging customers to save some cash and order directly through their websites and apps.
A way for them to control the quality and the cost and still, find a way to feed people wherever they feel safe eating.
"Food is something so intimate and it is so necessary 13:50 when you have the ability to choose when and where you want to eat and what you’re eating, it truly is a gift, it truly is a blessing," said Soto.
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