The leaky bucket of Indian food delivery startups

- "The leaky bucket of Indian food" - a leaking bucket of Indian food

- "The leaky bucket of Indian food delivery" - a metaphorical leaky bucket of delivering Indian food

- "The leaky bucket of Indian food delivery startups" - metaphorical leaky bucket that is Indian startups delivering food.

I don't know that the second change in meaning counts as a garden path, though, since while it did change the noun modified by "Indian" from "food" to "startup", that was from context, not gramatical necessity.

The economic reason for possible failure can be stated in just a couple of sentences - Labour is cheap in India, so most restaurants keep on-staff delivery personnel. This makes it easy for them to ramp-up if needed and often they have no need to contract with a third-party, food delivery service.

I see this model as a possibility here in the US, where labour is not cheap, and not all restaurants deliver food themselves. And yes, I believe they can work well. I used DoorDash several times when I resided in an area they serviced. Whether these businesses flourish or not is an entirely different matter, and growing competition in the field is definitely not making it easy.

I have multiple boxes of that brand in the freezer right now.

I would think that a decent substitute for delivery, although it'd nothing like going to a restaurant. It's lower latency than ordering for delivery. If you want hotter, add the appropriate ground pepper ( I use cayenne, which is semi-shameful but good anyway).