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Comment by JMTQp8lwXL | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal, but I only use food delivery apps when I travel, specifically for business trips. After flights + a long day in a possibly unfamiliar area, I defer to the app.

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I admittedly tend to do business travel to cities but TBH, eating out at a nice restaurant is one of the perks of having to travel--not having a probably lousy pizza delivered to my hotel.

But then, I know a lot of people who do room service and I haven't in literally decades.

90% of the time, I agree with you. Expensing nice restaurants I want to try is one of the best perks of business travel.

The other 10% of the time, my flight got delayed and I arrived at my hotel at midnight. I want nothing more than to eat something quick and simple, and get to sleep. That's where room service or a food delivery app comes in, and at a lot of hotels the room service after midnight is a lot worse than a delivery app.

But where are you getting the food delivered to if you aren't at home?

The hotel or office.

I didn't know you could do that. Most hotels I visit have key cards for the elevators. Are you meeting them in the lobby? Isn't that awkward?

Yes. How is it awkward?

Are hotels happy with delivery people hanging around their lobbies with smelly hot food? I imagine they'd ask you to not do that and it'd be awkward.

Huh? Ordering food to a hotel is totally normal, the concierge is not offended by "smelly hot food" and certainly I've never heard of a hotel asking guests not to order food.

um yes, guest order delivery food all the time. How is it going to be smelly ? the food is most of the time is inside a container, box or similar.

Not that I've used them, but I've had hotels offer delivery menus at the desk, especially if their own food options were closed.

If you live in a gated residential complex, how is the food delivery person supposed to meet you? Same issue. In my experience, you meet them in the lobby.

Service delivered directly to your hotel room door is typically offered by the hotel exclusively.

> If you live in a gated residential complex, how is the food delivery person supposed to meet you? Same issue.

I know some people who just provides the gate code in the delivery instructions that UPS and FedEx uses to open the gate. This is becoming more necessary in my experience because of Amazon using gig workers for delivery.

Hasn't been an issue.

I would have thought part of what you pay for with a gated community is someone at the gate to receive your parcels at the gate for you?

That only applies to large, sprawling residential communities that have guards. Smaller-scale multi-family housing buildings (that have say, 20 units) with a locked gate at the entrance won't have the type of service you're describing.

The delivery person goes to the reception and either the call you or send the delivery guy to the room. Also works for packages and other things and hotels are used to this.

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