The first day of November marked the completion of DoorDash’s acquisition of Caviar, the largest in the spate of DoorDash acquisitions the company took on last year. DoorDash and Square, which previously owned Caviar, first announced the $410 million deal in August of 2019. In all, it looks like a good acquisition for the company valued at $12 billion by way of equity fundraising. Along with the completion, DoorDash released a summary document known as an 8-K that provides a closer look at what exactly DoorDash received with the purchase. […]
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Minneapolis’ StarTribune newspaper reports that Louisiana-based Waitr Holdings laid off the majority of employees at Bite Squad’s downtown Minneapolis headquarters. Waitr acquired Bite Squad in late 2018 for $321 million. The move is the latest shakeup for Waitr, which has exited some underperforming markets, weathered waves of high-profile executive departures, seen its share price plummet toward zero and installed Adam Price as the new CEO, replacing Founder Chris Meaux. Waitr declined to release details about market closures ahead of its quarterly results, and said that it was not closing its […]
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Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney and President Adam DeWitt were clear the company’s third-quarter financial results were a disappointment—putting it lightly—but the execs of the one-time top U.S. delivery brand kept returning to the mantra that nobody should focus too much on the latest results, because “we’re going to make a lot of money next year.” Industry watchers, investors and analysts didn’t take the bait, as Grub’s stock cratered more than 40 percent, and The Wall Street Journal called the results a “gut check” for the food-delivery industry. At press time, […]
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To shine more light on its recently introduced pickup feature where customers pre-order meals that they collect at the restaurant or then eat inside the dining room, Uber Eats has launched Pickup Guides Powered by Jump, a discount to allow its Jump-branded e-bike customers to hop between various restaurants. Those embarking on their own “food discovery” can use promo codes for discounts on the bike or scooter, as well as their Uber Eats orders. While this sounds rather confusing on the surface, it’s part of the company’s effort to broaden […]
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Previously a $15/month fee, Amazon Fresh has now been recast as a free benefit for the e-commerce giant’s Prime subscription members, meaning even more U.S. consumers now have access to one- and two-hour grocery delivery in more than 2,000 cities and towns. “Grocery delivery is one of the fastest growing businesses at Amazon, and we think this will be one of the most-loved Prime benefits,” said Stephenie Landry, VP of Grocery Delivery at Amazon. “Given the rapid growth of grocery delivery we expect this will be a popular benefit.” To […]
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The world of food delivery gets a lot of attention for being a flexible way for people to find work without much effort. It might seem to most people that a potential driver just signs up and starts driving, but there is still a lot of recruitment happening for the delivery networks. Fountain, a recruiting platform for gig and hourly workers, has been working in this little-known corner of the space since it was founded in 2015. Now, with a fresh $23-million capital injection, the Bay Area-based company is poised […]
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Lyft and &pizza, the tech-savvy fast-casual East Coat pizza brand, announced a new partnership to bring &pizza employees in Washington, D.C. a reliable late-night transit option. This isn’t exactly news in the off-premises world, but is another step forward in ride-hailing brands teaming up with restaurants for the benefit of their employees or getting new customers in the door. The new “Lyft for Late Nights” program is the first dedicated flat-fare rideshare program for late-night workers in the nation’s capital, will provide &pizza employees who travel between 11 PM and […]
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In the wake of WeWork’s near implosion and fresh memories of Uber’s $5.2 billion quarterly loss earlier this year, a range of business pubs are claiming that the era of growth-before-profits companies is coming to an end, including third-party restaurant delivery services. With this highly pressurized backdrop, publicly traded Grubhub is set to release its third-quarter results two days before Halloween. As Grubhub’s shares have fallen nearly 50 percent from previous highs back in the salad days of late 2018, market intelligence firm Cowen published a preview of Chicago-based Grubhub’s […]
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It was October of 2017 when DoorDash first announced plans to open DoorDash-branded delivery-only ghost kitchens, and two years later its first example has opened in Redwood City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The facility’s first restaurant tenants include The Halal Guys, Rooster & Rice, Nation’s Giant Hamburgers and Humphry Slocombe. “With DoorDash Kitchens, the restaurants have a turnkey solution to quickly establish a foothold in a new market and generate revenue,” the company said in a blog post announcing the news. “They are not beholden to 10+ […]
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Another week brings yet another example of a third-party delivery company partnering with a restaurant to launch a new virtual restaurant. This latest is New York City-based Just Salad partnering with Grubhub to launch Health Tribes, a digital-only concept that launched October 10 and will be available for delivery or pickup at any of the healthy concept’s locations. The brand’s U.S. turf includes New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Florida and North Carolina. Healthy Tribes offers a variety of diet-specific recipes, including nutritionist-verified recipes that are compatible with keto, vegan, gluten-free and […]
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