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A lot of places have their own app or website where you can order takeout for free with no markup, and delivery with no markup and only a small fee.

ChowNow and Toast do that. They sell payments and other back-end systems to the restaurants, so they can commoditize the takeout/delivery experience and give it away for free.

I used to call, but between connection noise, having to give a name, accents, background sounds, them being in a rush, etc. we don't even understand each other. That's why I use apps.

As long as I’ve remembered, they’ve always offered delivery for free.

I think that's an NYC thing.

The mom and pop Chinese, Thai, Korean, have always delivered for free in my south Florida city. I’ve also passed by the restaurant and it was tiny. Like 1 table, 2 chairs. Whatever they weren’t spending on dining floor space was used for delivery. In retrospect you could say they were the primordial ghost kitchen concepts.