Delivery profitability remains one of the biggest debates in the food-delivery space. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified that topic dramatically as the majority of restaurants continue doing a huge portion of their business in pickup and delivery channels. A large number of operators are either looking at profitability for the first time or reassessing as more of their business is going out via delivery. For either, it’s worth a bit of a thought experiment about the delivery economics. For our hypothetical FODrucker’s restaurant, let’s take a look at the impact […]
Zuul is now moving into the restaurant technology space with the release of its ZuulOS that helps operators manage multi-brand restaurant and ghost kitchen operations. It’s an increasingly crowded space, as the restaurant software industry reacts to the fast rise of ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants.
Uber announced its fourth-quarter financial results, which also included full-year results for 2020. The prime highlights are year-over-year delivery bookings up nearly 130 percent as food delivery has pulled even with its ride-sharing business. Even so, Uber reported a net loss of $968 million for the quarter.
As the very definition of a restaurant is in flux, legacy point-of-sale providers and cloud-based upstarts are scrambling to build technology that makes it easy to keep multiple brands humming without manually entering data between platforms never intended to work together.
The industry can add two more novel virtual restaurant companies to the list. The first, a revenue-sharing model, Trivr Eats. The second is the first legally defined virtual restaurant franchise: Local Culinary. Both emphasize speed to market and a focus on high-quality culinary offerings, but with their own special operational models. Trivr founders Frank Chiodo and Brady Grover said they’re looking closely at the small independent operator who has plenty to do aside from coming up with a new virtual brand. “One the initial questions is, ‘Can you take 50 […]
Grubhub announced fourth quarter and full-year earnings in potentially its last year as a private company. Earnings from the Chicago-based company were somewhat mixed, but Grubhub’s overall revenue was up significantly.
Food Dudes is a restaurant delivery service that’s finding success in cities and towns that are much smaller than any burg served by the biggest players in the industry. With a lean team and a remote headquarters team, Food Dudes is profitable, growing across the prairie and looking to maintain its independence amid a blizzard of mergers and acquisitions.
DoorDash is leading the online convenience category by a country mile, according to new transaction data analyzed by Edison Trends. After 2020, in which consumer spending at online C-stores grew by 346 percent, DoorDash ended last month with 58 percent share over second-place goPuff with 24 percent of the market.
As a grim but practical sign of the times, DoorDash has partnered with Cellex to make discounted COVID testing available for partnered independent restaurants with three locations or fewer. This new program is a direct result of feedback the company gathered through its Restaurant Advisory Council.
With old-school catering still sidelined and facing an uncertain future due to the pandemic, the workplace meal-delivery scene is heating up with New York-based Sharebite, which recently inked some high-profile corporate partnerships for its lunchtime delivery service that puts a big focus on charitable giving.
