A new reason to consider kicking your Seamless habit

By Virginia K. Smith | April 3, 2015 - 12:45PM

If you've been telling yourself that your out-of-hand Seamless-ing is really just a means of supporting your beloved local restaurants, we've got some bad news: the omnipresent ordering app may do for harm than good for these businesses.

According to WNYC, "while Seamless really is seamless for customers, restaurants pay a high price for the service through commissions that can go as high as 20 percent on each order." This translates to slim to non-existent profit margins, meaning, as one chef put it, that the restaurants are just "working harder for less."

So what's a delivery addict to do? While Seamless and its partner GrubHub do have something of a monopoly, WNYC points out that both Yelp and Google are dipping their toes into the delivery game. And as you may have noticed from their ubiquitous subway ads, Delivery.com is aggressively courting New Yorkers' business, and offering restaurants better deals on commission in the process. There are also more niche options like the recently-launched service "Push for Pizza," which is exactly what it sounds like (push a button, get a pizza).

Failing that, you could always just pick up the phone and call. Whatever option you choose, don't forget to tip your delivery person well, and in cash.

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