Chef Ivan Orkin, known as Ivan Ramen and the keynote speaker at the Food On Demand Conference April 1-2, recalls many times and people that fed his “obsession with hospitality.” Chief among them was one of his first jobs at a very famous restaurant, a four-star New York Times establishment where “the chef was a sight to see. He wore a starched white chef jacket … and he had incredible posture. He would whisk through the dining room touching tables,” Orkin said. “I learned a lot about cooking but the […]
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Paul Damico joined Naf Naf Grill as CEO in 2017, only to find the Middle Eastern cuisine brand owned by Roark Capital wasn’t on the online map. “It was like the 1990s. We didn’t have a delivery platform, we didn’t have an app,” he told the audience at the Food On Demand Conference. But he decided the situation was actually a plus. “It was kind of refreshing. We took a step back and said, let’s take this time and build a really thoughtful strategy,” he said. He had seen plenty […]
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“To the victor goes the wallet,” read the headline on exclusive research prepared by SeeLevel HX and presented by Food On Demand at the conference April 1, and the victors in the food delivery business are clear—so far. According to respondents in Minneapolis and Moline where the study took place, DoorDash had 58 percent of the market; Grubhub, 50 percent; UberEats, 39 percent; Postmates, 21 percent; Amazon Restaurants, 13 percent. Bite Squad had 3 percent, but with its recent acquisition by Waitr, National Sales Director Scott Leffel, who helped to […]
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In case anyone was overwhelmed or even jaded by the shiny, giant delivery players speaking on stage at the Food On Demand Conference today—Grubhub, UberEats, Postmates, Google and their impressive peers—along came Delivery Dudes’ founder Jayson Koss, speaking truth to power in funny fashion and rocking the best hair of the conference. He founded Delivery Dudes in 2009 and is now in 60 to 70 cities. “Our drivers are happy, we’ve never had a drivers strike to this day,” he said, with a little jab at Uber. “When I started the company, restaurants […]
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“We have to think about a system of 4,000 stores and how are you going to create a consistent experience,” says Dawn Croft of KFC.
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Since Seth Priebatsch, founder of LevelUp, joined Grubhub after his company’s acquisition, he’s been bombarded by requests from restaurant operators to give a discount. What he’s heard most often: “Sharpen your pencil,” he said during the second day of the Food On Demand Conference, but he joked there’s a problem with that phrase. “I’m a millennial so I’ve never even used a pencil!”
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When famed ramen chef Ivan Orkin opened a tiny ramen shop in a suburb of Tokyo in 2007, he’d look out his shop window and see an old lady who ran a tobacco store. “This old lady and I became fast friends,” he recalled to the opening day audience at the Food On Demand Conference in Chicago, and ultimately taught him a lesson in hospitality and delivery that he shared with the crowd. “She would cock her head a little bit and I knew that meant she wanted delivery,” so […]
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Owning the customer is critical for restaurant operators as the delivery and mobile ordering business evolves, said Andrew Charles, senior analyst for Cowen & Company, in opening remarks at the Food On Demand Conference in Chicago today. “The best thing that restaurant operators can do is they need to own that customer and the customer experience,” he said. In May of 2017, he said, 52 percent of customers Cowen surveyed said they placed their orders through the restaurant’s app or websites; now it’s down to 30 percent as third-party platforms […]
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Combining proximity-based aspects of Tinder and Nextdoor with food delivery, Postmates’ new “Party” feature gives customers the ability to save money ordering from popular restaurants by showing a list of places people in in your neighborhood are currently ordering from. By joining the party, Postmates users can share delivery from certain restaurants and get free delivery. The Party feature was launched last week in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Phoenix, San Diego, Orange County and Philadelphia. Each so-called party has a […]
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DoorDash has now edged ahead of Grubhub with 38 percent of the U.S. restaurant delivery market, according to revised data from last year’s Edison Trends market share report, which was updated. Grubhub is now second, at 27 percent; with UberEats in third at 25. Postmates is the next-closest delivery provider, with 12.1 percent of the U.S. market, followed by Caviar at 2.7 percent. From there, it’s the “other” category that includes smaller, regional players at a combined 5.9 percent of the market. Another findings in the report is that DoorDash’s […]
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