Support your local Take-away

[old man emu]

As a result of actions to limit the spread of the nasty virus, our favorite restaurants and fast-food outlets now can only provide a take-away service. Hopefully that will keep the shops we like to buy from, open.

 

BUT if you want take-away, don't use one of the food delivery services. Go an get it yourself.

 

The cost of having the food delivers by one of these services is borne by the shop, not by you. The delivery services rip the heart out of the money you pay for your order. I have been told by a creditable source, who has never told me a porky (except where he was some Saturday night, and who bought the grog) that as an example, a take-away shop received an big order amounting to a tad over $220 to be delivered be a delivery service. The customer paid the $220 because that was total of the advertised prices for the meals. However, after paying the delivery service the delivery fee, plus a big share of the full order amount, the take-away shop owner was left with $104 of the $220.

 

If the customer had picked up the order, the shop owner would have received the full $220. All the other operating costs for the shop owner did not change, but by the customer choosing home delivery, the shop owner lost over 50% of his income.

 

So, by all means buy take-away, but if you want to be dealing with your favorite shop next Christmas, go and pick up your order yourself. A little effort on your part will help your local small businesses.

[onetrack]

I've been on about the corporate rorting of these large American online companies, for quite a while - the complaints from the restaurants and cafes are all the same - shafting on a huge scale by these operators - to the extent the delivery services make more than the restaurant of cafe makes - all for just having a website. These big operators also pay their delivery workers a pittance, and treat them like expendable items.

 

Some local eateries here on the Left coast have beat these corporate rorters. They've organised local groups to handle the food deliveries, at much lower cost to them.

Most businesses have websites, and most have put up new takeaway menus on them.

Ordering is as simple as a phone call, and if you can't get there yourself, and have to have it delivered - if it's not done by the big names in delivery, you know the locals are getting all the delivery money, not some billionaire in the U.S.

[old man emu]

What I don't like is that 99% of the delivery drivers are Indians. I wonder how many are legitimately undergoing study and how many are here rorting the system. These blokes have the game tied up, and any local person trying it on won't make a brass razoo. The bloke I drive mini-buses for tried it because the virus has killed the business. He only made $20 for a night's work. He couldn't beat the Indians' speed in claiming the jobs.

 

My son uses these delivery methods frequently as his business is run from home. He's a single dad, so when it is the week for his son to be at his mother's place, he settles himself in his office for hours and doesn't bother to cook. He tells me some horror stories, like delivery drivers claiming the job while they are miles away from the restaurant. Another time, his "hot" food took 20 minutes to cover a 5 minute car journey because the delivery person was on a push bike.

 

These delivery services are OK for the major fast food franchises, but destroy the local bloke.

[Yenn]

I saw an item on TV where food provider said they added $10.5 to their order price for delivery. $10 went to the deliverer. I wonder if I could get home delivery? 25km from the nearest shop. Would it be less than $10?

In reality I have no wish to get cooked food delivered as I am not enamoured with restaurant meals and don't consider a hamburger to be food. Home cooking for me, including bread.

[spacesailor]

Our local takeaway has put up its prices, " because of this covet19 virus "

Seems a lot are doing this.

spacesailor

[onetrack]

Our local hotel restaurant has closed down, but they are doing takeaways from the bar area. We ordered lunch yesterday (I got fish, chips and salad, SWMBO got a couscous salad dish), and went and picked it up.

Didn't take long for it to be ready for pickup, and when I went in, the hotel was like a morgue, it was a real shock, compared to what it used to be. But they're taking advantage of the lull to repaint the white lines in the empty car park.

The food was excellent, up to their normal standards, and it was especially well packaged in an attractive manner.

[old man emu]

Our local takeaway has put up its prices, " because of this covet19 virus "

 

That is an unsatisfactory reason to give for increasing prices. However, for a while there these shops were having to pay over-the-top prices for fresh vegetables - $10 for an Iceberg lettuce. One of the operators of a local shop told me that he had paid as much in one week for vegetables as he normally paid in one month. However, I can't see how the high price of lettuce affects the price of a Chiko Roll.

[pmccarthy]

Chiko roll is mainly cabbage, not lettuce.

[Yenn]

Lower demand, means the need for higher prices to cover the unchanging overheads.

[old man emu]

Lower demand, means the need for higher prices to cover the unchanging overheads.

 

That sounds daft - completely the opposite of the Supply and Demand see-saw we were always taught about. However, it does expose that there are other costs involved in supplying for demand that we rarely consider.

[spacesailor]

Now there's talk of employers cutting the workers wage, even though they're getting that government handout.

spacesailor