I CONVERSATIONS I
APPETITE FOR APPS
Why some restaurants nosh on the amenities of mobile food delivery applications and others are fed up BY MARKWELL LYON
ONLINE FOOD DELIVERY certainly
helped ma ny restau ra nts stay afloat during the pandemic lockdown and the cautious reopening that followed earlier this year. But the high fees and a lack of quality control have others questioning whether food delivery apps are a solution or a whole new problem for the restaurant industry. “I just find there’s a lot of shady practices going on with some of these companies,” says St. Albert restaurateur Ed Cordova. The co-owner of Luisa Ristorante is speaking about the food delivery apps— Skip the Dishes, UberEats, DoorDash, etc.—that were already growing in popularity before COVID-19 thrust a new normal on Albertans. “To me it’s not worth my time to even get involved with them.”
A pandemic changes everything Although COVID-19 has been hard on small businesses across the board, restaurants have been uniquely affected. The lockdown shuttered dining rooms and bars for weeks, and reopening plans in Alberta required social distancing and other preventative measures. 6 T8Nmagazine.com
