No stupid app to download. No account to create. No bullshit fees. No marketing emails. I just tell them what I want and then go get it. It's refreshing.
Restaurant owners are usually not tech people, nor can many of them afford to hire tech people. To expect all restaurants to pay exorbitant amounts of money setup/ maintain online ordering systems is not realistic.
Also, I have never had a restaurant ask me for a card over the phone. Order times are a rough guess based on current traffic, no matter over the phone or an app. And 9 times out of 10 the server repeats your order before hanging up. If they don’t, it is easy to ask them to.
To be fair, I have been surprised many times how difficult it can be to find an online menu for places I like in my area. Lots of places might not even have a website, but in these cases, I actually use GrubHub and the like to read the menus only. I never order through them.
Here is an easy way to beat these broken GrubHub shenanigans. Find an online menu, or use GrubHub only to read the menu menu if need be. Find the real phone number on Google maps. Place your order over the phone. Pick it up yourself and save tons of money on fees (and now apparently save the restaurant from getting screwed too). Make sure to pick up a paper menu on your way out for next time :)
Don't. Do. This.
Grubhub menus are often incomplete (and we all know the prices are wrong). I just checked a nearby restaurant I often frequent and the items I usually buy are not on the Grubhub menu.
If they don't have a web site and you want to see the menu:
Go to either the Google Maps listing or the Yelp listing.
If Yelp, don't click on the menu if they have one within Yelp.
Instead, click on the photos. You'll almost always find photos of the menu uploaded by Yelp users.
That's true, but rare. If there are no recent photos of the menu, then there's a good chance not many people eat there.
In any case, Grubhub menus are probably more likely to be inaccurate than those photos.
Which actually, is pretty impressive when you think about it. It’s not worthless. Even if not totally accurate, it will give you a rough idea of the most popular dishes!
If you want to pay for delivery (not pickup) with a credit card and the restaurant doesn't have online ordering then you'd read the credit card over the phone. Of course you have to say the words "I'd like to pay with credit," otherwise they'll assume you'll pay cash on delivery. Really standard before online ordering became big.
Some restaurants even have a POS system that when you've used a credit card in the past to pay for a delivery order with the phone number/address combination your using for your current order they'll ask you "would you like to use Visa ending in 1234?"
As an aside I didn't know it was a thing until I overheard my roommate doing it. This was 15 years ago now.
I think a lot of the lashback things like grubhub, uber eats is getting lately is precisely because people have become more tech savvy. The "magic" of the app isn't magic anymore to the current generation of users, and they just don't see the value in it that the previous one did.
My opinion: As it becomes more and more commonplace to have "just enough" technical expertise and the tooling is easy enough to DIY, we're going to see services like grubhub become commodified and open - and they know it, so they're doing everything they can to try to keep as much market share as possible.
That's how it always was, I really don't get this disconnect between people wanting to always hide behind a keyboard or smart phone when it comes to food. It's always been the most social thing I do in my entire day, as it has been done since for thousands of years, and I just can't see why people feel either super embarrassed and outright aloof when it comes to ordering food.
I mean if you know you're going to try and use an expired coupon or not going to tip well, I guess that makes sense, but in my experience most people just seem to have some inexplicable aversion towards food ordering and pickup. Yet seem to want to chat with the checkout lady about mundane matters, whereas I just want to get out asap and cook with the stiff I'm trying to buy and keep things to a minimum.
That is built into the price of the food you ordering. You aren't bothering someone. You're giving them a job.
It’s the reason people don’t ask workers at retail stores for help; they (most of the time) don’t want to bother someone even though it’s their job.
I don't want to 'hide', but my social anxiety makes phone conversations with people I don't know a harrowing experience; to make it bearable I need to work through a mental image of how a 'successful' call might go, from greeting through hanging-up, with some variations of what might happen in-between.
For a medical test related call I can force myself to go through with it, but to order food, when I can find something else that I like and that I can order via an app - I will avoid calling. I know this is quite an odd excuse, however did want to note that I at least want the personal phone contact, but can't deal with the unpredictability / stress involved that well.
I've never heard of this perspective used to describe what takes place when ordering food, you're clearly trying to equate it to a non GUI way of trying to navigate the process as you would when on a computer. Interesting perspective, its seems you think there is some underlying 'protocol' called conversation that you simply don't grasp, or are unaware of, right?
More points to follow below.
> I don't want to 'hide', but my social anxiety makes phone conversations with people I don't know a harrowing experience...
See, this I clearly understand despite personally having had to essentially speak at conferences for a living at one point; as I think people with a clear medical condition need to be accommodated in these situations, but just know that the FOH people taking your order are more likely to be receptive to your order than not because it ensures they A: get to have a job, and B: ultimately rely on satisfying you and providing a good UX in order to get a tip in exchange for said transaction, which is the majority of their overall wages.
Now, the Industry is filled with examples of feckless and quite frankly discontent people so it doesn't always show. But just understand FOH are there to serve you, its called hospitality for a reason and the relationship needs to be approached as such (within reason). Whereas BOH (chefs/cooks) is entirely different domain, which is what I did in that Industry, and requires more nuanced ways of communicating that I won't get into.
As for the payment processing, believe me I did fintech and on the back end its only really beneficial for the end consumer, with several hidden externalizes, as its hardly 'easy' for the business owner and the staff. But credit cards are just a paradigm so ingrained into the collective psyche that it will never go away, what's even more notable is that it was the Diner's Club model in restaurants that made Credit Card usage ubiquitous in the US in the first place.
But, again I totally understand this perspective when described in this way and totally understand why an app or a online order system is preferable.
I also don't have to worry about my order getting entered right.
Restaurants are loud, add in shitty phone signals and heavy accents - the result is communication barriers are common and you have to do a lot of back-and-forth.
Another issue is the person taking the order usually has more job duties than just taking phone orders, so they can be distracted if it's busy and forget to write something down and/or sometimes you have to call back several times until someone has a free hand to answer the phone.
The receipt had the wrong items listed on them, because the person taking the order checked the wrong things while taking the order.
I guess it could have been verified better after they took the order, but I can't help but to feel that the order would have been more likely to be correct if I had checked boxes in an online form and verified there before sending it off.
I personally prefer using websites/app for this reason, I can just in my own time make the order, get confirmation from others with me that I'm ordering with and when everyone is happy, just submit. If I ever have the choice between calling vs ordering online, I will never call.
Maybe it is because I am relatively young. I grew up apps first, so all the little annoyances of phones (accents, noise in the background, dropped calls, a lack of written records, etc) frustrate me more than others who didn't grow up with apps that just worked.
I agree, onboarding on these apps is miserable. But the benefits of a digital order, when done correctly, can really be better for some consumer cases than the voice call.
https://www.federalrelay.us/ip-relay.html
>IP Relay uses an Internet connection, a computer or mobile device with a web browser and a Communication Assistant (CA) . An IP user types what they want to say, the CA relays the conversation to their caller and then types their caller's response back to the IP user. To start using IP Relay, users are required to register for a 10-digit number through the Federal IP Relay website. To make your call today, go to www.federalip.us.
https://www.federalrelay.us/vri.html
>Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) is a feature of Federal Relay's Video Relay Service (VRS). This option provides deaf and hard of hearing Federal employees with on-demand remote sign language interpreting in order to facilitate communication between individuals who are in the same location (i.e. office, cubical, front desk, etc.).
Absolutely uncalled for. I did click through and read the whole article. I was actually unaware of TTY until reading it and did some research into it before coming to the conclusion that it was not something I needed to invest time into.
More importantly, added another person and an internet or phone connection into the loop would add a level time commitment for the person on the other end of the phone that I would find unnecessary, which takes out most if not all of these options.
> There's also accommodations for different disabilities, like the Deaf and hard of hearing via sign language.
This is why I put "somewhat". It's never been an issue beyond leaning in slightly when a cashier is a little soft-spoken and maybe asking someone to repeat something, and certainly never bad enough to learn sign language (out of necessity, I'd still love to learn for myself at some point).
"Hard of hearing" is a veeery wide range, with the vast majority leaning on the weaker end of the spectrum. My personal experience hasn't really needed much in the way of intervention. It just makes phone calls more of a hassle than the average person.
Just not worth an investment.
The interesting thing is that I view all those (except the fees) as benefits.
App makes it always easy to access and I can casually browse for food when hungry.
Account means I can re-order a past thing with a tap and that all my payment information is saved.
Marketing emails mean coupons.