Are food delivery companies helping or hurting Rochester restaurants?

Rochester NY

Description

GrubHub has a radio ad that talks about "the sound of local restaurants making money." I wonder if the reality is the exact opposite. GrubHub is based in Chicago. Uber and Postmates are California businesses. These companies charge as much as 30% of your meal price, and that money leaves Rochester forever. Our restaurants were built to serve local communities and equipped with an appropriate number of ovens, coolers, and workstations to do that. They're now working triple duty with the same resources and often with limited staff. The result is that we frequently get the wrong order or there's something wrong or missing. In these cases the delivery company refunds the order and the restaurant is left holding the bag. We were delivering food in the 70s without the internet. Is this better? Again, 5%-30% of the money that diners spend on food does not go to the driver, the preparer, or even the owner of the restaurant. It leaves Rochester and enriches a huge corporation in another state. A Rochester restaurant and a Rochester driver serving Rochester patrons owes nothing to a rich guy in California for their success, if you ask me. But I'd like to hear some perspectives from restaurateurs, cooks, delivery drivers, and diners as to what you feel is the state of dining today and whether it's gotten better or worse in the last ten years. Maybe we can start a discussion that leads to a better way to keep our money here in town and use it for things that benefit us.