Delivery places like that, the ones that existed before Grubhub and DoorDash, those are the ones that know efficiency.
If you’ve ever seen the delivery robots in person or on video you’ll see that they are super clumsy, and unlike human DoorDash drivers they make the restaurant employees come outside and fill them up.
It’s been enough of an issue where DoorDash sent me a snarky email about how often I report issues with my order. Essentially accusing me of lying for a discount, which I’ve never done.
If a variable was removed where the restaurant was directly responsible for what’s going in and it knows where to go, that could be a big improvement in some aspects of the experience.
That said, I’m not a fan of these robots taking over sidewalks. I also think the inability for the robot to actually come to the door kills it for me. If I need to go out to the sidewalk to get the food from the bot, I might as well just drive to the restaurant too.
So I think they are attempting to address a real issue I’ve had, but I don’t think it’s the right solution. What worked a lot better was restaurants that employees their own delivery people. So it was the restaurant that was accountable for the whole experience. With the DoorDash model, no one is accountable for anything. It seems like there is little incentive to make sure the customer is actually happy, there are too many independent parties involved in the end-to-end process.
I live in a dense urban area where it's easy to walk to get stuff, so that biases my perception, but why do you order from door dash? Is it a time constraint? Unless I was incapacitated or seriously out of time (which, as you say, Door dash doesn't reliably solve for), I can't imagine not walking within the range of these robots.
I’ve been dealing with a lot of burnout and depression, so the motivation to leave the house is low. I work from home. The idea of driving just to go pick something up and bring it home is one my brain won’t jive with. If I’m driving somewhere it’s going to be the grocery store. That also means taking the shower I probably didn’t take before work. Since I’m going to the store, if I were to pickup prepared food I’d want it to be on the way home, which limits the options a lot. The area a mile from me with a lot of options is a small suburban downtown, which usually means dealing with a parking structure and then walking, if I wanted to drive there. The hassle factor is high.
If I was in your situation, I would do what you do, and have. I’m just far enough away where it annoying to walk to anything, and driving is equally annoying for such a trivial thing. Then the burnout/depression has me living the hermit life for the most part. Now that I’ve spent so much time inside, it requires a bigger reason to get me out. It’s a problem; I’ve found myself outside looking up at the sky, like I forgot how high it went.
I know this isn't the point of your post but I hope you have a good support network to help you through this. Wishing you the best.