For a company promising to bring order to chaotic kitchens, Galley Solutions is having a moment as its cloud-based inventory, ingredient and supply chain tools help foodservice brands work through this unplanned midlife crisis. Whether it’s a single restaurant, corporate caterer, ghost kitchen or franchised chain, helping such businesses track food costs down to a micro level is the raw data many brands need to reevaluate their businesses and viable in a strange new world. Focused on sexy topics like optimized purchasing, data integration and cloud-based food costing, Galley’s business […]
San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a temporary 15-percent limit on the fees third-party food delivery providers can charge restaurants here during the pandemic. San Francisco happens to be the home base of three of the four largest national delivery brands: DoorDash, Uber Eats and Postmates. The cap will be in effect through the remainder of the local emergency, or until businesses are permitted to reopen for dine-in service, whichever comes first. It’s part of the city’s broader efforts to support its businesses during the pandemic—including tax and licensing deferrals, […]
DoorDash is reducing commissions for all of its local restaurant partners by 50 percent, including its Caviar subsidiary. The San Francisco-based company expects this program will benefit more than 150,000 local restaurants in the U.S., Canada and Australia. The new relief effort started on April 13 and continues through the end of May. This $100 million injection is in addition to DoorDash’s previously announced COVID-19 response programs, which will also continue through the end of May. “We continue to hear from our restaurant partners that driving growth in sales is […]
Equity research firm Cowen interviewed two Food On Demand all-stars, exploring the effects of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry. Cowen Analyst Andrew Charles sat down with Vishal Agarwal, founder and CEO of ItsACheckmate, and Fred LeFranc, founder and CEO of Results Thru Strategy. While there is an abundance of scary data, there are some positive trends lining up. Agarwal said data flowing through his third-party integration firm had a bit of both. Agarwal told Charles that in looking at his data about 20 percent of restaurants are shutdown. In New […]
JoyRun, the novel delivery service that takes advantage of community interaction, is moving its national launch up partially because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company, which started on college campuses before expanding to military bases and a handful of corporate campuses in the Bay Area, offers a different approach to food delivery. In the original model, someone—generally a student in a dorm—would start an order for that proverbial burrito. The JoyRun app sends out a notification to nearby users, allowing them to join the initial order. The app also allows […]
Restaurants that self-deliver with their own drivers have seen their ups and downs, as labor costs and availability have fluctuated along with the universal rise of direct-to-consumer convenience. For Atlanta-based Wing Zone, which has always had its own fleet, sales have actually risen during the pandemic as a wave of new applicants apply to work in its restaurants or out on the road. Even while missing out on the typical March Madness basketball rush for wings and as most college markets have gone quiet, Wing Zone sales have surged in […]
For the New York-based Figure 8 Logistics crew helping restaurants spin up profitable delivery, carryout and native delivery operations, the COVID-19 crisis has been a sea change. Rather than focusing on executing soft- and hard-launches on previously planned schedules, the delivery-focused consultancy is helping restaurant concepts turn on a dime to provide customers what they really need to survive isolation—be it fresh produce or make-at-home cocktails. While Figure 8 is a new company (first profiled by FOD back in February), some of its initial clients are early-stage restaurants, some of […]
DoorDash is moving beyond restaurant meals and into convenience store products with the launch of its new Convenience vertical, giving customers the ability to order household staples for delivery or pickup, including household products and ready-made meals. The new offering has been in the planning stages at the company for a while, but was accelerated giving what’s happened with COVID-19 quarantines and restrictions. The largest U.S.-based third-party delivery brand, DoorDash has partnered with more than 1,800 convenience store locations across the country, including mega-brands like 7-Eleven, CircleK and regional stores […]
In one of the most high-profile pivots from a major restaurant brand, Panera Bread has begun selling grocery items like milk, bread and produce alongside its traditional soups, salads and sandwiches. The new service has been quickly launched as grocers experience sudden increases in volume, leaving many customers to schedule delivery and pickup orders relatively far into the future compared to the pre-COVID era. Officially called Panera Grocery, the new service leverages Panera’s existing supply of produce and ingredients, which can be ordered through the Panera app or through the […]
Uber Eats has launched a new program to give users in New York the ability to contribute to their favorite local restaurants directly through the delivery app at checkout. Announced by Janelle Sallenave, head of Uber Eats for the U.S. and Canada, the delivery provider will then match every contribution with a donation to the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund up to $5 million. “The restaurant industry is being decimated by this virus, and it’s going to take people helping people to get through it,” says Paul Barker, owner of Pauli’s […]
