4 ms·

So I know this is not directly related to this lawsuit-- but, can someone with knowledge of the industry explain this to me? I placed and order for pickup from

So I know this is not directly related to this lawsuit-- but, can someone with knowledge of the industry explain this to me? I placed and order for pickup from "Custy's pizza" in Norco CA-- which if I understand correctly has been in business for at least 30 years. I had ordered from GrubHub from there without incident several times before. I place my order and it proceeds through the normal order progression. It just happens to be an early evening where it is pouring rain-- very rare in my region of California. When I arrive at the pizza shop-- the lights are off inside, and the door is chained. After a few hours, GrubHub confirms I've picked up my pizza (I hadn't), and the transaction was complete. I tried to dispute the transaction, but GrubHub kept closing the chat and then giving a cheery message about how I'd closed the support chat (I hadn't). I have maybe used GrubHub once since. Ironically, that experience forced me to discover a pizza shop that was closer to my place that had much higher quality food and much better service (mostly staffed by locals). What the heck happened here? How does an order process proceed through a restaurant that is closed and unmanned? I have to assume some sort of malfeasance.

hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago
Grubhub agents always do that to me too. It's absolutely infuriating.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  Can you explain what a "Grubhub agent" is for reference?
  - miked85 5y ago
    A customer service agent who works for Grubhub.
- op00to 5y ago
  I have literally never had a problem with grubhub support. Any time there is a problem, they are quick to throw vouchers at me which is fine.
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    I don't know what to tell you. I literally said in the chat something to the effect of, "I was unable to pickup this order because the restaurant is closed." And I sent a picture of the restaurant with chains on the doors. A couple mins later, I got kicked out of the chat and was unable to open a new one. I'm not saying GrubHub is evil or a scam or anything like that. I just don't understand, as an software engineer, how a fuckup of this magnitude could happen. I think what must of happened is the restaurant closed unexpectedly, or was unable to find workers/supplies.
gillytech 5y ago
I'm not 100% sure but maybe that pizza place was also working with a ghost kitchen? https://roaminghunger.com/blog/15623/ghost-kitchens-everything-you-must-know https://roaminghunger.com/blog/15623/ghost-kitchens-everythi...
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  Ghost kitchens still have employees working there. You would expect a few lights inside. Additionally, chaining the doors while employees are in there is... well, it is a bad decision for more than one reason. Besides the safety issues here, chaining employees inside your restaurant stinks of forced labor.
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    I think the argument was that the pizzas may have been prepared elsewhere in a ghost kitchen, not that the pizza restaurant location itself was a ghost kitchen.
ruined 5y ago
not sure if it still works this way, but the restaurant devices for some delivery apps would auto-confirm orders after a timeout if they were ignored. i think the expectation was that if the staff wasn’t trained or wasn’t paying attention the worst that would happen is a driver would show up and talk to the staff which would prompt them to make the order. if the order ended up super late, the customer was expected to blame the restaurant and leave a bad review, or blame the delivery driver and rate them badly, and there would be no real fallout for the delivery company. of course this was nonsense and just led to confusing situations like yours, frustrated and underpaid drivers, and spiteful behavior from restaurant employees.
- xtiansimon 5y ago
  > “.. the restaurant devices for some delivery apps would auto-confirm orders after a timeout if they were ignored.” I know each platform has different settings in their tablets ( how restaurants primarily interact with the platforms). These have settings to help restaurants throttle orders. What I’m not sure about is auto-accept. Prolly each platform has something. As to why a closed restaurant would be ‘open’ on the app when the doors are closed, it was the case during the pandemic that restaurant owners were making the difficult decisions to close their doors, and some were forgetting to close their online stores. Some would forget because they have only few platform sales, and others were forgetting because they have so many different platform systems they skipped turning one off.
amatecha 5y ago
I mean... isn't that basically fraud? I'd be demanding a full refund before I lawyer up :P haha
- Salgat 5y ago
  I'd just do a chargeback and never use that service again.
  - amatecha 5y ago
    hey true, good call.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
What happened is that Grubhub, DoorDash, and their ilk are scumbag outfits that rip off everyone. DO NOT DEAL WITH MIDDLEMEN. Order from the restaurant, and make sure that you're dealing with the restaurants directly. These assholes have also been caught putting up fake phone numbers for restaurants, which actually go to themselves.

hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago

Grubhub agents always do that to me too. It's absolutely infuriating.

oceanghost 5y ago
Can you explain what a "Grubhub agent" is for reference?
- miked85 5y ago
  A customer service agent who works for Grubhub.
op00to 5y ago
I have literally never had a problem with grubhub support. Any time there is a problem, they are quick to throw vouchers at me which is fine.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  I don't know what to tell you. I literally said in the chat something to the effect of, "I was unable to pickup this order because the restaurant is closed." And I sent a picture of the restaurant with chains on the doors. A couple mins later, I got kicked out of the chat and was unable to open a new one. I'm not saying GrubHub is evil or a scam or anything like that. I just don't understand, as an software engineer, how a fuckup of this magnitude could happen. I think what must of happened is the restaurant closed unexpectedly, or was unable to find workers/supplies.

gillytech 5y ago

I'm not 100% sure but maybe that pizza place was also working with a ghost kitchen? https://roaminghunger.com/blog/15623/ghost-kitchens-everything-you-must-know https://roaminghunger.com/blog/15623/ghost-kitchens-everythi...

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
Ghost kitchens still have employees working there. You would expect a few lights inside. Additionally, chaining the doors while employees are in there is... well, it is a bad decision for more than one reason. Besides the safety issues here, chaining employees inside your restaurant stinks of forced labor.
- jhbadger 5y ago
  I think the argument was that the pizzas may have been prepared elsewhere in a ghost kitchen, not that the pizza restaurant location itself was a ghost kitchen.

ruined 5y ago

not sure if it still works this way, but the restaurant devices for some delivery apps would auto-confirm orders after a timeout if they were ignored. i think the expectation was that if the staff wasn’t trained or wasn’t paying attention the worst that would happen is a driver would show up and talk to the staff which would prompt them to make the order. if the order ended up super late, the customer was expected to blame the restaurant and leave a bad review, or blame the delivery driver and rate them badly, and there would be no real fallout for the delivery company. of course this was nonsense and just led to confusing situations like yours, frustrated and underpaid drivers, and spiteful behavior from restaurant employees.

xtiansimon 5y ago
> “.. the restaurant devices for some delivery apps would auto-confirm orders after a timeout if they were ignored.” I know each platform has different settings in their tablets ( how restaurants primarily interact with the platforms). These have settings to help restaurants throttle orders. What I’m not sure about is auto-accept. Prolly each platform has something. As to why a closed restaurant would be ‘open’ on the app when the doors are closed, it was the case during the pandemic that restaurant owners were making the difficult decisions to close their doors, and some were forgetting to close their online stores. Some would forget because they have only few platform sales, and others were forgetting because they have so many different platform systems they skipped turning one off.

amatecha 5y ago

I mean... isn't that basically fraud? I'd be demanding a full refund before I lawyer up :P haha

Salgat 5y ago
I'd just do a chargeback and never use that service again.
- amatecha 5y ago
  hey true, good call.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

What happened is that Grubhub, DoorDash, and their ilk are scumbag outfits that rip off everyone. DO NOT DEAL WITH MIDDLEMEN. Order from the restaurant, and make sure that you're dealing with the restaurants directly. These assholes have also been caught putting up fake phone numbers for restaurants, which actually go to themselves.