The worst thing about baseball concessions isn’t the quality or even the exorbitant prices, it’s hearing the crowd go crazy as your star hitter knocks a dinger into the bleachers while you’re waiting for a $12 Miller Lite. Well, Postmates has a plan to help. As outlined in a press release, the company will help fans walk a little less to get their stadium fare by placing pick-up stations around the park. Fans who order through the Postmates app can have their hot dog, beer or popcorn delivered to the […]
Read More
With plenty of cash on hand and a fast-growing staff approaching 500 employees, Boston-based ezCater moved into a new headquarters within the city’s Financial District. Having taken 97,000 square feet in the Congress Square building, its new space is 50,000 square feet more than its previous pad. This will make room for 200 new employees as the global catering provider plans for as many as 750 in the years to come. The new workspace was designed to bolster the company’s culture, which it says is “rooted in transparency, fast and […]
Read More
DoorDash, the leading U.S. third-party delivery provider by market share, has entered into an agreement with Square to buy its Caviar delivery brand for $410 million in cash and DoorDash preferred stock. This huge acquisition underscores DoorDash’s recent gains in market share and brings a new delivery platform under its umbrella with a generally positive reputation among restaurant operators.
Read More
After writing about the new deal with Cold Stone Creamery parent, Kahala Brands and DoorDash, folks in our office got a strong hankering for some ice cream. We decided to take on the hard work of putting Cold Stone’s delivery to the test to see how well it can deliver ice cream at the peak of summer. Adding a bit of pressure to the test, 11 of us piled our orders together on an especially hot Friday afternoon. With temperatures hovering around one-gazillion degrees with 5,000 percent humidity (90 degrees […]
Read More
Delivery.com, an online marketplace allowing people to order from restaurants, liquor stores, grocery stores, as well as laundry and dry cleaning providers, announced a significant expansion of its “reach and capabilities” with the acquisition of Texas-based Mr. Delivery. With their powers combined, Delivery.com now claims 2.5 million customers, 15,000 merchants and operations in approximately 1,800 cities. “This acquisition of Mr. Delivery marks the beginning of rapid expansion efforts and initially includes food delivery operations across 160 cities, with additional companies to be onboarded in coming months,” the New York-based company […]
Read More
Ride-hailing giant Uber is reportedly eyeing the European grocery market, with Bloomberg reporting it’s looking to start grocery delivery to compete with Deliveroo and Just Eat—the continent’s two largest third-party delivery brands. Evidence: “We’re currently speaking with a number of the major supermarkets around Europe,” an Uber spokesman said in an email to Bloomberg. While it’s likely that grocery delivery will become a larger part of the third-party delivery equation here in the U.S., the practice has already gained traction in Europe. Bloomberg’s story reports that Uber has broached a […]
Read More
Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney is apparently fed up with negative press and how some of the brand’s competitors are behaving. He addressed both topics during the second quarter earnings call earlier this week. The Chicago-based company’s results were mixed. Grub posted a slight miss on revenue, but put up some impressive growth numbers. For more on the earnings, watch Food On Demand Editor Tom Kaiser discuss the quarter with Nicole Petallides by clicking the link below. https://tdameritradenetwork.com/video/rB4AoWwxHNuBbEQ7XYgCJg Toward the end of the call, Maloney took a moment to “set the […]
Read More
A New York Times writer’s 27 hours as a third-party delivery courier brought some of the industry’s last-mile ugliness to the masses last week. It does not paint the industry in a kind light, and just reading it is enough to trigger anxiety, as writer Andy Newman gave a first-person account of being a courier and the hustle mindset of couriers trying to make efficient use of their time. If you were a non-tipper before reading, seeing the great lengths drivers go to for modest pay may change your mind. […]
Read More
Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann spoke last week at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado, where he dismissed rumors that the fourth-largest U.S.-based delivery brand was preparing to be sold to DoorDash, Uber or Walmart rather than pursuing a previously announced initial public offering. “I would love to take Postmates public,” he said. “It’s actually one of the great American consumer brands, … and our plan is to take it public.” Postmates is “growing twice as fast as Uber Eats and Grubhub,” he said, implying that the brand remains attractive […]
Read More
A new survey from US Foods digs into the grievances consumers have with third-party delivery and provides some eye-popping insight into some of the less-than-ethical things couriers do on the job. The food supplier conducted a national survey of 1,500 delivery consumers for one part and 500 delivery drivers for the other. Both surveys were conducted between May 9 and May 13 of 2019. While it contains some interesting nuggets, it’s not a massive study given the millions of third-party consumers and the legions of drivers who support them. The […]
Read More