re: What's going on with Waitr?

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That's the issue. People (who aren't morons) aren't complaining about the fee; they are complaining that Waitr forbids the restaurants from passing the cost forward to the customer. If a restaurant has a dish on the menu for $20, they must charge $20 when purchased through Waitr, even though Waitr is taking a substantial percentage. There are theoreticals in which a restaurant would be forced to lose money on low markup dishes.

If Waitr simply allowed restaurants to bump their pricing on their Waitr menu, the overwhelming majority of the angst would go away.

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I understand that. But, I would estimate only 25-50% of restaurants on there actually bump up their prices to offset costs. More already follow this guideline, than don't.

And if you read all of the "press" this has been getting, Meztizo's is the only one that has mentioned controlling menu prices. The other 19 that have been interviewed all talk about the fee structure. And Jim at Meztizo's saying profit on food is only 5% is ridiculous. Maybe profit of the entire restaurant is 5%, but if food cost + labor = 95% than he has bigger problems than Waitr. The kitchen workers will be getting paid whether or not he accepts Waitr orders. I hope his food costs are around 25% or less. Most Mexican food is not expensive to make. After Waitr takes it's fee, there should be 40-50% left to go towards those labor costs already being incurred or other overhead costs. Waitr sales should be looked at like lagniappe.

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The percentage is what is taken from the delivery service. Someone buys a $10 entree from a restaurant. The person pays Waitr for the entree. The next day, Waitr direct deposits $6 into the restaurants account, and they keep the 40% or $4. This is how the Waitr/Restaurant relationship works. All of the other fees just go to Waitr.

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Glad you spelled this out for me. I've stopped using them for delivery as it's been a total shitshow the last three times I tried, but I'm fully done with them now.

Now I'll just use the app as a menu and call the restaurants directly

More like Waitr pockets 25-30% of the order being sent out.

I would say closer to 75% bump their prices. Waitr really has trouble enforcing this

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And if you read all of the "press" this has been getting, Meztizo's is the only one that has mentioned controlling menu prices. The other 19 that have been interviewed all talk about the fee structure.

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The reason they are complaining about the fee structure is because they can’t modify pricing to account for the added expense incurred for each Waitr delivery order.

If they sell a dish for $20 in the restaurant, and have a 25% margin on the in-store version....that margin disappears for to-go orders. So what incentive do I have to sign up with Waitr (or any company)? In other words - whether to-go or not, it costs the same to make a hamburger. I may sell more of them if I have a delivery option - but if it’s not profitable to sell it then what’s the point?

As an aside - can’t restaurants control what they offer to-go? Maybe they could limit offerings to higher margin items.

My biggest issue is they are trying to control what we charge. They have no right to tell us how to price our food.

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Only thing I use Waitr for is to order food for pickup. I have not done that in awhile though. Not sure you can even still do it.

Well the incremental sales from waitr are a real thing. So it made sense when they were taking 15% and you could raise your prices to offset their fee.

Everyone is going to lose under their new structure

It is worth the extra money to be able to not wait in line to pay.