Photo by Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal
When using delivery apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash, people often overlook the variety of commission fees that independent restaurant owners and customers must pay just to have their food delivered to their homes.
This commission fee is usually between 15-30% depending on a variety of factors such as distance and pricing of the food, but in Jersey City it is a different story.
Many of the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats have been guilty of charging over 35% for most independently owned restaurants, with some picking up the fees because of the benefit that the apps provide to their businesses.
“When we started, we didn’t have these apps yet. However, when we started adding these apps, it definitely helped us a lot,” said Jhonacel Candelaria, owner of Meryendang Pinoy.
“Especially on the winter and rainy days, when people didn’t want to leave the house, but still craving for meryendas. We added a little bit more in the price vs our regular price in person. This way, we won’t lose much fees.”
The city has been facing an increasing problem with delivery services charging higher fees to both customers and restaurants with delivery services holding a majority stake in the matter.
“What we really see is that the food delivery market is dominated by three companies Uber Eats, DoorDash and GrubHub. They can really dictate the prices to the restaurant,” said Councilman James Solomon when asked who has the advantages when it comes to pricing.
Solomon has been vocal on the city’s problems with hiked up delivery fees.
This was also a major issue during 2020 when the majority of the country was in lockdown and most people had to resort to these delivery services to help keep these restaurants afloat.
In response, the state passed a bill that created a market cap that would protect the restaurants from these fees and keep them from any potential economic crash stating that these applications can only charge restaurants up to 20% for deliveries within the city. The bill had expired as of January 2021.
It’s unclear where it stands now.
But now four years later, the city looks to continue protecting its local businesses.
“Our response was to pass a law that established some basic safeguards for our restaurants that were being passed in other cities, and what it basically says is that the food delivery apps have to offer a basic affordable tier of delivery services that goes for advertising on the platform and the delivery,” said Solomon.
While this essentially re-establishes the many rules set by the 2020 bill, there is also a rising concern of what is called geo-fencing.
“With this new law we passed, [it] established basic protections so they can be listed even if they do not want to pay for the higher tier service and if restaurants feel that they are being shadow banned, they should alert the city so they can reach out to the companies,” Solomon added.
Along with defending restaurants from geo-fencing the law also has protections for the delivery drivers, giving reflective vests and assuring that when a tip is given, the full amount goes to the driver without the interference of the companies.
As for the customers, Solomon encourages them to call where they are ordering from to see what is the best course of action.
“For the customers we always say that if you are ordering from a restaurant that you know and like, we encourage you to call the restaurant and find out how to order because a lot of the restaurants like for you to call directly. There is a way around it to bypass the apps,” said the councilman.
La Bodega in the Jersey City Heights likes the ease that comes with handling orders through apps especially during rush hour however because it’s through the apps, the connection between them and customers isn’t built.
“Operationally it’s easier to handle orders placed through the app especially during rush hour. [The] down side of this is that these are not ‘our customers’ rather they belong to delivery apps.”
“We normally get delivery orders through the apps… but I would say depending on the day,” Candelaria, of Meryendang Pinoy, told Slice of Culture. “We have some regulars around the area that would call for pick up. I would say it’s the more common way to get orders, but the only thing that we have to do is update our menus more online. We have a lot of regular menus that are not online yet, and people would call us.
Then, I would just advise them to choose what they really want, I’ll match the price for other items, then hand in the items to the driver what they really want from the in-person menu.”
It is important to support local businesses as they are a part of what makes a community, this can be done through ordering in person and sharing these businesses among the people within the community.
