Am I the only one out there who never used DoorDash, UberEats, GrubHub, or any of those other restaurant delivery services?
Back when I still ate restaurant food occasionally (before the pandemic), I never used the restaurant delivery services for these reasons:
I didn’t want to pay delivery charges, which are a non-issue if I pick up the food myself or eat at the restaurant. (To be fair, I never had to order for a large group of people, in which case the delivery charge would have been just a modest percentage of the order.)
When I was at home, the convenience advantage of ordering food didn’t justify the costs. Yes, it takes time to warm up food or cook food, but it would also have taken time for my food to arrive from the restaurant.
Eating out was only more convenient when I was away from home. In that scenario, I didn’t need delivery.
Due to the pandemic, I’ve been avoiding all junk foods and restaurant foods. Unhealthy foods weaken the immune system and promote inflammation. As I see it, the health risks have multiplied by orders of magnitude from pre-pandemic levels. Gone are the days when higher blood cholesterol was the primary risk.
I figure that I’ll have plenty of time to eat junk food after the pandemic is over. Of course, there’s a chance that my taste buds have changed and that my old favorites won’t taste as good as they used to. I suspect that this will limit my junk food consumption for the rest of my life.
You are not the only one. I never have and don’t plan on it.
If I become so homebound then I might consider it but I would be
more likely to have a delivery from my grocery store so I can make
the food the way I want.
Someday I might order a pizza for delivery but I know I would be
parting with a lot of money since I give a good tip on top of the
delivery charge and the food and tax.
We have used a restaurant delivery service a few times. I spent several months not being able to drive. Occasional restaurant delivery was nice. No serious problem with delivery. One was missing a condiment.
I was also using Amazon fresh and Whole Foods delivery. Also, when in somewhat better shape I used curbside grocery and Target pickup.
Only Instacart which is grocery delivery, once. I use it and have them put groceries in my trunk when the hospitals get full in my area. I was given $60 in free food to try it.
From the spring of 2020 through the spring of 2021, I did almost all all my shopping by Instacart delivery, curbside pickup, or Internet order. I even requested curbside pickup from stores that didn’t offer it, such as the liquor store and the garden center. I made two exceptions when I rented a vacation cottage overlooking Lake Ontario and found that the groceries and supplies I’d brought with me weren’t everything I needed.
After vaccination I started shopping in person again, but I stopped in December 2021 and didn’t set foot in a store again until this week. I haven’t used any sort of restaurant delivery, but two of the better restaurants in the area are nearby and offered curbside pickup.
I’ve never so much as had a pizza delivered in my life. Closest I’ve come to grocery delivery is a few specialty items I order from Amazon (my fave olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce…). Anyhow, I enjoy grocery shopping, seeing which produce/seafood/meat is best that day, finding unexpected sales.
Back in the day, if I felt like takeout, I’d order and have the hubster do the pickup either from home or on his way home from work. After all, if I feel too tired to cook, I certainly feel too tired to drive, deal with people, carry stuff to the car, up steps into the house, etc. That’s more work than cooking! Easier to eat leftovers, fix something simple, or eat one of the heat & eat emergency meals I keep on hand.
Since the hubster can no longer do pickup himself or cook (dementia), I have to fix meals or pick up takeout. Pickup is harder than it sounds, as DH naps unpredictably and sometimes balks at getting dressed/putting on shoes/leaving the house/getting in the car. And if he came with, he’d have to come into the restaurant/grocery store with me (unless there’s curbside pickup, which few places have any more). I can’t leave him home alone or even in the car alone.
Once in a while I order a few meal kits delivered. Has pretty much replaced takeout in my life. And eating at restaurants. I’m far more likely to get takeout if we’re out in the car already and I decide to get it on the way home.
Am I the only one out there who never used DoorDash, UberEats, GrubHub, or any of those other restaurant delivery services?
I’ve never used any restaurant delivery, even the store-specific pizza delivery services that were common long before any of those outfits existed. We used to use take-out (particularly when we had company) once my wife could no longer go out. But I picked that up myself.
Nor have I ever had a supermarket do my shopping for me. In the early days of the pandemic my daughter would not even consider that I could go to a supermarket, so I would give her a list and then drive over to her house for an exchange in the driveway. That only lasted a month or so.
Do a once a week pickup at my favorite tex-mex place - in and out in 2 minutes…
Maybe 2 pizza delivery in 30 years.
Back in college days, had pizza delivery on Sat night - but had no car and long walk to a pizza place at 10 below zero. That long long time ago.
My sister uses pickup at the Kroger food store and gets Whole Foods delivery - she would not venture into a restaurant and still won’t - but will eat ‘outdoors’ at one. Still
Me? eat inside restaurants at early hours with almost no other diners…and shop Walmart at 9am with only half dozen customers in entire store…
I have. I even had a “subscription” to GrbuHub. One monthly fee instead of a delivery charge on each order.
Almost never had a problem, and usually when there was one it was a problem with the restaurant, not the delivery. And I never had a problem with getting a refund if I asked for one.
But it was always a part of my discretionary income. And some financial changes are heading my way soon and my discretionary income will be reduced, so now GrubHub is out, and preparing more of my own food is in.
Part of my reluctance comes from the cost–despite the usually reasonable price, the deliverer usually gets tipped. So that $4 charge really takes, say, $8 or more out of your pocket.
I’ve never used it at home but those are good when you’re in a strange city, don’t want to drive at night/don’t have a car, and exhausted. I’ve used them when staying in an Airbnb with a friend and we wanted Thai but didn’t have the needed ingredients. A friend uses them a lot because she’s not home very much and rarely has a decent stock of groceries or time and energy to cook.
They have their place. We don’t do takeout or delivery at home but there’s been times I was glad we could kick our shoes off, open a bottle of wine we had on hand and dig into a container of Pad Kee Mao.
We have never used any of those apps but received an interesting offer from GrubHub via American Express. Once a month, for the next 12 months, we can use GrubHub (and pick it up at the resturant) and get a $10.00 credit on our bill. We used it once already and it worked out as promised; we received the $10 almost immediately on our bill. We bought two bowls of specialty soup via takeout from a local very small restaurant. Full price would have been $20 (which we would have neve paid) but at 1/2 price, it was a great deal. We will use the discount once a month for the next 12 months, then likely never use it again.