​Takeout is here to stay (and even if you’re eager to serve a full dining room again, you have reason to be happy about the takeout part). The proof is in the numbers. According to a new survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers by Paytronix Systems, 63 percent of the money that U.S. consumers spent on food orders last year was on food eaten at home. Digital channels supported those orders by a large margin: Of the money consumers spent online on food orders, 89 percent was spent on orders placed via desktop websites, mobile apps and aggregator apps. What’s more, the research found that consumers spent 50 percent more on average when they placed orders online for takeout. Paytronix CEO Andrew Robbins says that in 2021, a consumer’s ability to order online, collect orders via a drive-thru or curbside pickup, and earn rewards through loyalty programs will create the most opportunities for restaurants. This makes it all the more critical to be able to use your POS to quickly summon information about what your recipes cost, which menu items deliver the most profitability, and what items a guest has ordered in the past. If your restaurant receives a grant from the American Rescue Plan, consider using it to fine-tune your tech to streamline your takeout so you can suggest the profitable items and combinations that a guest is most likely to crave time and again.
Take out and curbside pick ups will be with us for some time.  Some things to consider when building these menus are:
  How well does a menu item travel?  
   Packaging
   Tamper evident packaging  
Who's driving?
Third party delivery service
    Expensive
    Who controls the customer data
Self delivery
    You control data
     You control timing
     You control how product is handled    
Below we have offered some resources for your pick up and delivery program.

​A new wrinkle for food delivery

On-demand food delivery is just getting started – and restaurants may be just one part of it. Uber announced recently that it had partnered with the on-demand delivery startup GoPuff to offer items from grocery and convenience stories in 95 cities within the next couple of months. (This is on top of its recent acquisition of Drizly, enabling the delivery of alcohol.) As grocery stores offer more ready-to-eat foods and companies like Uber appear to be making it easier for consumers to have food and drink delivered when they want it from businesses beyond just restaurants, where does this leave restaurants? To be sure, developments like this hint at how third-party delivery companies could be shifting gears to promote greater profitability after the pandemic – and potentially become less reliant on business from restaurants. In any case, as life begins to return to normal, restaurant operators need to continue to think about how they can innovate. That means studying developments in delivery and identifying new ways to make it work financially, whether through in-house options, partnerships with other restaurants or other avenues. It’s also about looking for new opportunities to get a restaurant’s brand in front of consumers – via such routes as ghost kitchens and partnerships with grocery stores that can offer hot or prepackaged restaurant food to go – or elevating and differentiating the in-restaurant dining experience so consumers feel the need to make it a bigger part of their lives again. A recent report from Restaurant Hospitality shared some things operators are doing to innovate, ranging from delivering food to lockers in apartment buildings to finding creative ways to minimize food waste.

​Delivery  - will you use a Third-Party Service or your own staff?

​With operating cost increasing and possible incoming decreasing, it is more important than ever to look at your reveune streams and areas were you are spending more money.  Chances are your delivery business has been increasing as well as your delivery costs.  Now is the time to determine if you are going to use/continue to use a third party delivery service or if you will self deliver.  Here are a few things you should consider:
​
  • If you have a current arrangement with one or more third-party delivery service, contact them to ask for a fee reduction.
  • If you do not have a current third-party delivery relationship, secure quotes for long-term relationship  
  • If you do not charge a delivery fee today, determine if you can competitively charge a fee or raise delivery menu prices.
  • Do a pro-forma P&L on different levels of sales made through delivery using your negotiated third-party rate vs. what it would cost you to establish your own service
  • Determine how to scale up your self-delivery business if business improves rapidly
  • Remember: if orders come in through the third-party delivery service, THEY own the data and customer information. With Self-Delivery, YOU own the data and your relationship with your customer.
  • The biggest delivery services charge is between 20% and 30% of the meal check for their service
  • Some local governments are trying to regulate those charges – San Francisco is capping fees at 15%. There is great deal of change that will happen with the third-party companies over the next 12-18 months. Who wins (the operators or the delivery companies) is yet to be seen.
  • If Self-Delivery is an attractive idea for your business, here are some steps that you should take:
  • Choose responsible drivers
  • Check driving records
  • Make decisions on using employee vehicles vs those owned by the business
  • Establish cleaning & sanitation protocol for the drivers and the vehicles
  • Secure Vehicle Insurance & Liability Insurance
  • Self-Delivery Cost Components
  • Insurance
            Liability
            Auto
  • Employee 
  • Vehicle Cost
            Auto Loan/Lease or Employee Reimbursement
            Operating Cost & Maintenance
  • Food Warmer/Cooler Equipment (thermal delivery bags, etc.)