Waitr and its newly acquired Bite Squad subsidiary both saw impressive gains in delivery orders on Valentine’s Day, with a particularly notable increase in seafood-based items and kids meals like mozzarella sticks and chicken tenders.
For Waitr, the Louisiana-based delivery service that purchased Bite Squad in January, create-your-own-pizza was the biggest gainer on Valentine’s Day, up 85 percent compared to the previous year. Mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, mac and cheese and cheese pizza rounded out the top six. From there, the adults got in on the antisocial fun with spicy tuna rolls, crab Rangoon, shrimp and boneless wings to round out the top 10.
Bite Squad’s romantic holiday ordering was a similar mix of kid-friendly fare and adult meals, with bento boxes up 957 percent compared with 2018. Subs were up more than 700 percent, followed by hotdogs, crab and seafood in the top 6.
“Valentine’s Day is historically busy for restaurants in-house, but our data shows a meaningful uptick in delivery orders,” said Sonny Mayugba, chief marketing officer at Waitr. “Our impression from this data is that many people made Valentine’s Day 2019 more of a family affair rather than a one-on-one date night.”
From my own anecdotal evidence, nothing says “I love you” like a home-cooked meal of crab legs and scallops that allows you and yours to avoid the (real or illusory) drudgery of reservations, lines at the host stand, the search for parking and general contact with society.
