ST. LOUIS — The hottest table in town… is in your own kitchen.
Restaurant dining rooms have been closed to curb the spread of coronavirus for more than a month now.
But you’re tired of leftovers and you want to order in, so you open your go-to delivery app on your phone — Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash — decide to eat the delivery fees and surcharge that come with it in the name of supporting local, and within an hour you're eating food from your favorite restaurant.
The unappetizing side you didn't know about though? That restaurant may be losing money on your meal.
"It works maybe for some folks if they’re doing high volume and just sending stuff out the door constantly, but that’s not our model," said John Perkins, owner of Juniper in the Central West End. The restaurant briefly accepted orders through DoorDash during essentially a trial period, but ended that when they started getting charged commissions: 25% of every order.
"I’ve just been really, I don’t know, aggressively against third party delivery systems, because I felt like they were exploitative for small businesses like mine," Perkins said.
Restaurants pay up to an average of 30% to these big companies on orders through their apps, on top of fees you’re paying.
"Restaurant margins are already thin to begin with, and for every $10 you’re taking $2.80 cents or $2.50 cents, which basically means it’s a loss," said Perkins.
If you get a discount, like $10 off an order, the restaurant may have to pay that themselves — even if they don’t agree to the discount.
