With all the upheaval in the restaurant industry, the CEO of Sweetberry Bowls is having fun as a former tech guy who says he fell into foodservice. As Founder and CEO Desi Saran grows his franchised restaurant toward 20 locations and explores the full gamut of ghost kitchen and delivery opportunities, he and his team are trying to find creative ways to capitalize on every opportunity that’s cropped up in this everything-on-demand ecosystem. Sweetberry Bowls is a fast-casual franchised restaurant serving indulgent and healthy fruit bowls, salads, oatmeal, smoothies and […]
Details are few, but multiple reports suggest the New York City Council is looking into fees charged to restaurants by Grubhub and other delivery providers. First reported by the New York Post, a hearing is scheduled by the city council’s Committee on Small Business on June 27 Bronx Councilman Mark Gjonaj was quoted as saying the council is “trying to figure out ways for small businesses, these mom-and-pop shops, to keep their doors open” in light of delivery-related expenses that have become a challenge for the restaurant industry at large. […]
Think you’re busy? Consider the plight of QSR cashiers wearing headsets to answer calls while taking in-person orders and coordinating with the back of the house to expedite food. It’s not easy, and we’ve all been on the business side by calling in to place an order and immediately being put on hold. While this very situation has fueled the growth of third-party delivery, there’s a new option to improve this arrangement for workers while trimming labor costs, increasing upselling and ensuring that every caller ultimately gets to place an […]
Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison took to the airways on CNBC to talk about how the company’s large portion of digital orders has set the brand up for delivery success at the operator level. Because digital sales are more than 30 percent of the Wingstop business as of Q1 results, he added, it’s an easy path leading toward delivery. That, and the brand’s small-footprint restaurants and simplified menu mean others just can’t compete. “It’s a very efficient, carryout—and now delivery-focused—concept that we believe creates efficiencies that some of the big box […]
In its quest for product deliveries faster than a single day, Amazon’s Prime Air division unveiled a new delivery drone that can fly up to 15 miles on a charge and deliver packages under five pounds to customers in less than 30 minutes. Looking somewhat similar to a Star Wars TIE Fighter, the delivery giant’s latest drone was unveiled this week at the re:MARS Conference (Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space) in Las Vegas. Amazon’s 20-year vet Jeff Wilke said in a blog post that it aims to scale its […]
It’s been a rough eight months for Grubhub’s stock price, but the company is celebrating good news in the form of $400 million in new financing through a private offering. According to the company’s press release, $340 million of that cash pile will be used to repay existing debt. Going deeper into the weeds, the new funds are being run through Grubhub Holdings, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Grubhub Inc. The new notes will be senior unsecured obligations guaranteed by Grub and each of its domestic subsidiaries. In […]
Packaging for delivery is key, and something the industry is making great strides in to keep food in a decent state during delivery, but the waste created by restaurant packaging is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. The New York Times recently published an article exploring the ugly potential for mass delivery adoption, namely the huge amount of plastic that the Chinese takeout and delivery consumer is using. The issue comes right back to pleasing the consumer at all costs. “Restaurants in China that do business through Meituan and Ele.me […]
Looking at which online grocery delivery brands offer the freshest food the fastest and most cost-effectively, Consumer Reports just published a ranking that listed Target-owned Shipt as the best groceries-on-demand service. Consumer Reports is a subscription-based publication that surveyed more than 3,000 of its members for the report. They collectively rated Shipt highest for hours of delivery, timeliness, communications on delivery status, packaging and text-based customer service—among more conventional factors like quality and freshness of the items delivered. The report also includes a stat from Bain and company and Google […]
Google has added an “Order Delivery” button allowing customers to summon meals from their favorite restaurants, which can be delivered through Postmates, DoorDash, Delivery.com, Slice and ChowNow. The company says more delivery providers will be added soon. By reducing a tiny amount of friction for hangry consumers, integration of delivery into Google’s search, maps and voice assistants could bring a new wave of later-adopters into the food-on-demand ecosystem. Being able to order your favorite meal by saying “OK, Google…” is novel, but the “Order Delivery” button on its search and […]
The conveyor belt may be the neatest thing at Kitchen United’s first Illinois ghost kitchen within the River North neighborhood in Chicago. Restaurant operators place their packaged orders and they’re whisked away overhead to get to the waiting delivery drivers, and then off to hungry diners. Jesse Koontz, the franchisee for Dog Haus in Chicago who started a delivery-only operation two weeks ago at the new Kitchen United facility, showed off that feature in a tour last week, but he also listed a couple of other nice aspects of the […]
