The State of Restaurant Delivery Now: Soggy Fries Vs. Rapid Growth
Skift Take
Growth of delivery can be measured in leaps and bounds across the industry as companies expand their national footprints, restaurant partners, and technology to cover increased demand at a time when the limits feel boundless.
DoorDash has a new national restaurant partner: Chick-fil-A. This news isn’t particularly remarkable on its own; such chain partnerships have been driving growth in the third-party delivery business for the last year or more.
But a few specific details of the partnership wonderfully define the current state of the delivery business.
First, the experience. Delivery via DoorDash, available at 1,100 Chick-fil-A restaurants nationwide, will only be available to customers within a 10-minute radius of the restaurant. That’s one way to prevent soggy french fries, which have become synonymous with the challenges of food delivery. Smart move, too, because according to Chick-fil-A, 90 percent of the restaurant’s delivery orders include its waffle fries.
Second, DoorDash worked directly with Chick-fil-A to integrate into its point-of-sale system for fast and efficient orders, a now-hallmark of delivery service-chain partnerships that launch with nationwide support.
Every delivery compan
