‘You’re losing money’: Local restaurant owners encourage customers to bypass delivery apps

‘You’re losing money’: Local restaurant owners encourage customers to bypass delivery apps

REGINA —
Some local restaurants are encouraging customers to order food directly from them, instead of using food delivery apps like SkipTheDishes and Uber Eats.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many restaurants in Regina are making most of their meals for takeout or delivery.

Tommy’s Speakeatery, Fired up Grill, Gringo’s and Luiggi’s Pasta House are offering a coupon for 10 per cent off for using their delivery services.

Managing partner of Tommy’s Speakeatery Daniel Celis-Arnusch said Skip takes 30 per cent from each order, which he would prefer to give to a hired driver.

“You’re now looking at a 60 per cent food cost, a 30 per cent labour cost, a 30 per cent overhead, and that is already more than the entire take so you’re losing money to do it,’” Celis-Arnusch said.

Celis-Arnusch said he plans to keep the business on the app, since despite a sign up fee, there is no cost for restaurants to stay on the list.

“It’s a marketing opportunity, folks that have never seen or heard of us, you know they can try us out. But I give them this coupon and ideally they will never order from us through SkipTheDishes again,’” Celis-Arnusch said.

The owner of Flavours of India shares a similar feeling with Celis-Arnusch. Flavours of India is not a part of the group on the coupon, but like Tommy’s, it is on the app and also hires its own delivery drivers.

“It feels like it has been forced upon us because that’s how the market is,” Flavours of India owner Sukhi Josan said.

Josan said the app takes a 25 per cent cut from orders and those numbers are not within his margins. He would prefer customers buy from the restaurant directly.

“If Skip is like five per cent to 10 per cent of our sales it doesn’t hurt, but now it’s getting to a point where it’s over 50%,” Josan said.

SkipTheDishes did not respond to CTV’s requests for comment, but in a news release it said 21 per cent more restaurants have joined the service in Regina in 2020.

Published at Fri, 11 Dec 2020 22:40:00 +0000