How to Rethink Online Food Delivery

The recent wave of food delivery kickoff-ups is remarkable. I'm non talking about meal kit commitment services such as Blue Apron, where you are delivered raw ingredients you must cook yourself. That'southward a gripe for a afterward time.

This is about home delivery of cooked food, usually ordered online.

HTML MODULE 4010

Nutrient delivery is not a new miracle. From the milkman of yore to Chinese and pizza joints, information technology's not difficult to swap chopping, sauteing, and blistering for an easy meal out of a plastic container or cardboard box.

Only until recently, delivery was not exactly gourmet fare. Sit-down restaurants, especially those designed equally an "experience" with attentive waitstaffs, gorgeous environs, and great food, rarely offer delivery or accept-out unless they accept a nearby offshoot or adjacent casual café intended for a less high-forehead evening.

But now nosotros encounter a slew, if not a drench, of commitment services that bring food from non-traditional sources directly to your home. Companies sprung upwardly everywhere led by Waiter.com (possibly the original "modern" nutrient commitment service), GrubHub, Delivery.com, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and others, all using varying business models.

In that location is no real proof that these services are making a meaningful dent on the overall eatery business...yet. Simply millennials, in particular, are very receptive to the idea and probably use delivery services to an extreme, at to the lowest degree those in tech enclaves similar the Bay Area and Seattle. That is where these services proliferate, because they are venture capital funded and practise not accept to testify an immediate profit.

I've been trying to discover reasonable criticism of this minor societal change, but have come upward empty-handed. And then, I'll ask this: what's missing?

How about a loftier-cease online-only gourmet restaurant run by a super chef? No brick-and-mortar location, just a kitchen that designs and ships meals engineered for quick ship via nutrient delivery services.

This is already a hush-hush reality for certain takeout places, only I'm talking almost a more high-end feel. You'll want a famous and fabulous chef behind the recipes running the place. A frontwards-thinking chef who would "get" the concept. I'd sign up immediately.

HTML MODULE 4165

About John C. Dvorak

John C. Dvorak

John C. Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the co-host of the twice weekly podcast, the No Agenda Bear witness. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, PC/Calculating, Reckoner Shopper, MacUser, Barrons, the December Professional as well as other newspapers and magazines. One-time editor and consulting editor for InfoWorld, he as well appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, and the Vancouver Sun. He was on the start-up squad for C/Net besides equally ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) he hosted Silicon Spin for four years doing 1000 live and live-to-tape Tv set shows. His Net prove Cranky Geeks was considered a …