I used to order takeout almost every day. It felt easy, convenient, and like a well-earned treat after a long day. But now? The food shows up cold, the orders are usually wrong, and the endless fees are ridiculous. Add in some questionable hygiene from certain restaurants and growing concerns about how unhealthy most of it is, and suddenly, cooking at home doesn't sound so bad. I'm not the only one who's over it, and here's why so many of us are done with takeout.
Note: The content of this article does not reflect the Writer's personal beliefs.
It is Slow
When you place an order for food, you usually want to get it right away. But food delivery services are notoriously slow. You typically won’t get your food for at least an hour after you place your order. It would be faster to drive to the restaurant yourself and get it!
Instead, you sit at home waiting for the food to be made, for the driver to be notified, for the food to be picked up, and finally delivered to you. It takes forever.
The Food Is Cold
Since the food takes so long to be delivered, it is often cold when it arrives at your door. This is almost guaranteed. It is no fault of the delivery people, though; it is just simple science.
The food starts to cool the moment it leaves the kitchen. When it arrives at your door, you always need to reheat it, which diminishes the quality of the meal. We really hate cold food.
The Order is Wrong
So often, your food arrives at your door, and the order is wrong. Either you are missing a sauce, didn’t get the substitute you asked for, or your order is completely different from what you wanted. Then what? Do you call the restaurant and wait another hour for the correct food to be delivered? Or do you just eat what you got and try to enjoy it?
This is a very common problem of food delivery services that we absolutely hate.
The Fees
Food delivery services love to pile on the fines and fees. When you see the total cost of your order, you can essentially add another 20-40% to that price to account for all the delivery fees you need to pay.
There are bag fees, delivery fees, environmental fees, and then you have to tip your delivery driver on top of it all. It is not cheap! And we don’t even understand half of those fees.
Limited Menu
Your favorite restaurant may not have its full menu available for delivery. That means you may not even be able to get that meal that you are craving. There are a few reasons why restaurants may limit their delivery menu, but no matter the reason, it can be pretty disappointing when you want a certain food and can’t get it delivered.
It's Messy
Have you ever opened your delivery food bag and found that all of your food had fallen out of the containers and was a total mess? This happens so often that it makes us want to cry.
Our food was shaken, tumbled, and completely messed up during transit, and there was nothing we could do other than scrape the food scraps out of the bag and try to make them look like a meal again.
Limited Availability
These days, most major cities and suburbs have food delivery services. But if you travel to a more rural area, you will be out of luck. Food delivery is expanding, but it isn’t everywhere just yet.
Those of us who live in remote areas simply can’t use all those great delivery apps yet. We are just out of luck and dreaming of food.
Confusing Tips
How are you supposed to tip a delivery driver? We are not sure. Do we put it in the app, or does the big company then take a percentage away from the driver? Do we throw cash at them at the door? Or would that be rude?
Then there is the matter of how much to tip. Should drivers get more than a typical waiter since they have to drive their car, or should we give them less because they also have a higher hourly rate? We are so confused and stressed over the tip. We need direction!
Missing Restaurants
Not all restaurants sign up for food delivery programs. Some would rather not be included on the list of restaurants you can choose from. Restaurants actually have to give a portion of their sales to the delivery service companies, which greatly reduces their profits.
So, your favorite restaurant may not even be on that list of delivery options. This can seriously stink!
Frustrating Tracking
Many food delivery services allow you to track your food on the app. You can see when the food is made and picked up, and even watch it drive down the road on the map. This seems nice, but it can be very frustrating.
When you see that your food is ready but no one is picking it up, you know that it is just sitting there getting cold. When you see the delivery car stop at a store and park, you wonder what is happening with your meal. It can be very frustrating to watch your food hop around from place to place without being able to do anything about it.
Bad Apps
There are a lot of food delivery services that have awful apps. They are app-based companies, so you would think that they would invest in their technology. But some services may as well be developing their apps for 1990s flip phones. Frustrating apps do not make us want to order delivery.
Boring
There aren't many new take-out restaurants out there. Ordering from the same few places again and again can get pretty boring. When you cook your own food at home, you can get creative and try new dishes and flavors. Simply ordering from the same places again and again is never thrilling. Just stop doing it!
This post was originally published on Spatula Desserts.
Leave a Reply