One cost advantage to delivery is that you can prepare the food in conditions so horrifying that nobody would eat it if they saw it in person. Some of the Deliveroo-exclusive restaurants in London are like this, inside shipping containers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrv78nG9R04
Whenever I have traveled, I always enjoy trying street food but this has put the fear in me... at least if I travel to China.
edit: slightly disappointed I can't express my feelings by using the vomiting emoji on HN...
Whether gutter oil exists in any capacity whatsoever, it'd be merely a brief encounter with rural Chinese principles and the commercialism of the developed world; therefore it won't stick around for long as China becomes more developed.
https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/04/03/chinese-gutte...
That's not a same-restaurant advantage.
It's not even really an advantage; restaurants usually don't have open kitchens.
That seems intuitively obviously true...but it's not, entirely; food needs to be finished on site, of course, but central kitchens for restaurant chains (or groups, where the individual restaurants are branded differently) are a common thing, and very often are located in lower rent outskirts than where many of the supported restaurants are.
Another sign of this is if the building doesn't seem to have enough space for a kitchen of a size needed to serve the number of seats in the dining room.
Now, don't me wrong, I'm an excellent cook, and we cook dinner at home most nights of the week. But if there were a food delivery service (via drone, robo-van, whatever) which could delivery me reasonably tasty, healthful cafeteria-style food at a price cheaper than I can make myself (since they can prepare in bulk), I'd be tempted to subscribe.
But the opposite can be true.
There was an article posted on HN in the last six months or so about "virtual restaurants" where established restaurants drive a van or drop a shipping container into a parking lot after hours and set up shop exclusively for delivery purposes in urban areas. The restaurants that actually bother to be part of the neighborhood were pissed about it.
I'm guessing this solely means paying rent?
I'd argue not at all.
It's only a benefit to a very small number of people who have zero requirement to be local residents.
Food vans are contributing far more to communities through their efficiencies.
Is that because of food safety or the way employees are treated? I can't imagine its that different than how supermarket ingredients are prepared - most people wouldn't like the insides of a chicken slaughterhouse, commercial fishing boat etc either.
Main advantage of delivery is that Beijing streets are shit to travel -- too wide, awful traffic, poorly placed metro stops, etc.