Food & Dining How long to wait before cancelling Uber Eats order?

Ordered some food the other night from the UE app. Not a large order, nor small, just the average 2 person order for around $50. It was stuck in the "preparing food" state for over 30mins and thus the estimated time kept increasing. This was not the first time my wife and I experienced this. Is this normal? Why do people put up with this poor experience? Am I just being entitled? We ended up cancelling our order, and received a $10 credit for the trouble. We then drove to a nearby eatery and discovered our new favourite pizza and pasta place (with great choci cake). And while we waited for our order to be prepared (in less than 10 mins I should add), I visited next door and picked up two scoops of ice-cream to eat while we waited.

 

Maybe the kitchen was flat out , especially being a Saturday night, If you cannot fill a dining room on a Saturday night , something is wrong with your establishment.
And who do you look after first , someone actually in your establishment or others.

 

So, dont use uber eats.

 

What's wrong with pick up? (or drive-thru?)

 

Its on Current Affair more restaurants are giving away ubereats ss they take .....wait for it......35% commission on the full price !!!

 

The problem is the restaurants don't feel they have a lot of choice. They're generally afraid that if they don't participate in Uber Eats and similar services, they'll loose not only the delivery business, but the takeaway and walk in business as well.

Many feel that if they participate, they'll loose money in making deliveries, but if they don't participate, they'll be out of business.

 

What's wrong with a couple of frozen dinners in the freezer in case of emergency - cost - $12 for two and you don't have to leave the house.

Or a cheese and ham toastie

 

This is a really, really good point.

We're becoming a lazy, fast food society. Last week I had to analyse a clients spending patterns. Based on their EFTPOS transactions, this family of 3 was spending over $3k per month on food and groceries. Most of this was small transactions of less than $15, at cafes, multiple times a day.

They're having trouble saving money, because they get a coffee on the way to work, another at lunch with some fast food, then another on the way home from work. They then go out to dinner (or have it delivered, Uber Eats was in there quite a bit). They're haemorrhaging money when they could easily spend less than a third of that to feed the family.

 

There's option 3. User pays (not Uber pays), that is - If you outsource your pickup to the uber/hotbox or whatever service using their app, then you pay their price rather than the outlet's takeaway prices.

 

That would be the fairest solution, but Uber knows that people wouldn't pay an extra $20-$30 for the service. People are just too cheap.

 

If they were cheap, then they wouldn't be using Ubereats ... nothing wrong with a couple of pizza bases in the freezer, throw on a bit of topping, toss in the oven ... and tada ... taste better than the bought stuff

 

We were out one Saturday night a few weeks ago and the teenagers staying at home asked if they could order some food Uber Eats.
They were still eating when we got home, which was odd.
Apparently, the order took ages and eventually Uber called them to say the delivery bloke had fallen off his bike and they would be crediting the account $10.
My daughter Mimi said to them, 'But I'm still hungry?'
So they said they would put the order through again.
It took forever again.
I looked at the food and said, 'That isn't from the Indian place up the road, is it?'
They nodded.
It's about 200 metres away.
There are more than 30 restaurants within a 10 minute walk of home, so I have told the girls we might give Uber Eats a miss from now on.

 

My experience with Uber Eats has been positive and I use it probably 1-2 times per week on average. With that said, I don't really order during peak dinner times on a Friday or Saturday night which might have something to do with it.

Good on you for cancelling the order though. Speak with your money and don't support businesses that don't perform.

 

Now they'll need an uber-maid/uber-chef.
(oh, I forgot they'll need an uber-nanny to blow on the hot pizza) .

 

That's just it. If we've paid (consideration) and been provided with an estimated time for delivery, and that time keeps increasing then the performance of the agreement is not being met. I know that is very simplified, and I know sometimes restaurants are busy et al, and I wouldn't expect minute accuracy. I guess my first point is if the restaurant isn't even close to meeting the estimated time, why do they agree to it? Who sets the estimated time? The restaurant or UE? If this is a common experience, why isn't there more of an up-roar? Are people just happy to sit on the couch and not hold people accountable? And my second point being, we had an awesome experience going out (for take-away).

 

There was talk last year of Uber Eats in Sydney setting up some big commercial kitchens just for deliveries.
I was only half paying attention to it. I'm not sure whether they would operate them, or whether restaurants with a good reputation and name would operate them. The thought behind it was to eliminate the problem of doing takeaway stuff in a functioning restaurant.

 

@Depreciator I believe that these'd be ghost kitchens