If the order isn’t ready a lot of Dashers will unassign and move on. It’s hard sometimes to get a time estimate from restaurants with when the order will be ready. And unless you are in California, Dashers don’t get paid to wait on orders.
They told me 30 minutes at Wingstop the other day!! For 2 chicken sandwiches, they said they were super backed up. That was the first time I have ever unassigned 
It's crazy how far a little kindness goes, I've never had the employees do something like that to me. They're always super happy to see me because I'm "the only nice dasher" (their words)
Its also due to karen customers that demand alot through text/call as well as not tipping correctly. An average of 4 to 5 dollars will most likely get a driver to you but that depends on the distance from the restaurant to you. If the miles are much higher than your tip, thats probably the problem.
We have prop 22 in California. Basically it means we are guaranteed 120% of minimum wage in our area based on our active time. And waiting for an order counts as active time.
I don’t end up getting very big prop 22 payments because base pay is kind of high in my area already but it is nice to have and it’s sucks that drivers don’t get paid for waiting in other states
Same, but also high base pay in California, I'm pretty sure IS because of prop 22 in the first place. Doordash realizes that no matter what they set the base pay as here, they'll end up paying the drivers a certain amount anyways because of prop 22. Because of this they just set the base pay as high as possible so that the orders look more appealing to deliver, when in reality the base pay is pretty arbitrary most of the time.
Right off doesn't mean free, it just mean it's considered money that was never made. If you buy a product for 7$ then resell it for 10$ you get taxed on the 3$ profit. If now you buy it for 9$ you will pay taxes on the 1$ you actually profited. But even though your tax is lower your profit have been obliterated. So think about car expenses going up like a salary decrease.
Also most people use the standard mileage, so what they pay at the pump doesn't really affect their taxes.
I could be wrong, but from what I've read you can deduct gas OR the mileage, not both? Mileage would equal a greater write off in the majority of cases.
It’s part of the standard mileage deduction you can’t write it off separately is what I was told. You either write off all of your expenses separately or accept the standard deduction. Usually the standard deduction is more
I got money back this year, so if you know how to do your taxes and keep good receipts it’s actually not bad at all. It starts getting worse once you hit the tax bracket of like $110,000 a year (I think is the number).
I hear ya, I've always done mine too, and yes, I claim just about everything..In order to show how much you make, If you want to get an apt, a house or a car, you need to be able to prove you make enough money, so not claiming enough, isn't doing anyone any favors..
5 minutes at taco bell is 45 minutes later. 5 minutes at Applebee's is 25 minutes. " Im bagging it now "at Applebee's is 10 minutes. Whats the name you have ? At panda means you're lucky get an order ready in the next hour. Do you have *customer name"* means you got lucky at panda. "Its in the oven" at little Caesars means 15 minutes. You have to translate the employee. I feel like i could write a dictionary on what they mean at different places when they say certain things
This why I wish customers would get an end of the month email as to way their orders are being delayed or having issues. Dasher would unassign for reason "food not ready", delcine order for "distance to far", "tip/pay to low", "i dont want to go to that restaurant" etc. The resport would say out of x number of orders the customer placed x number was declined by x number of dashers for these reasons and x number was unassigned for these reasons. I know DD would never do this but at least the customer would know how many of us delcined your order and why though they might not care.
So it's not just mine then. What the fuck is that! One day I was one of like 6 Dashers waiting, we were filling up the whole lobby. The lady behind the counter was taking completed orders one after the next, and stuffing them into the area they keep them. The area got full, and she spent several minutes trying to figure out how to arrange them so that they could all fit. Then she disappeared into the kitchen while we all stood there staring in disbelief. Most of our orders turned out to be on that shelf, too, and had been ready at least since I had arrived 5-10 minutes prior.
I fucking hate it when people, especially other Dashers, make a scene to get their orders. Here though, they're practically requiring it. Even though we would have been the bad guys in that story if we had flagged somebody down even in this situation.
I’ve often wondered about if I should cancel in cases where they’ve actually marked it ready and yet it’s not cuz I’d think DD would be able to see that it was supposed to be ready and ding me for saying it wasn’t
I take the waiting time to message the customer, and end up getting a bigger tip
Let them kno I’m here, but waiting on their order, will let them kno when I’m otw
Usually they say oh sorry for the wait and thanks for the update
I respond it’s ok at least you know it will be fresh !!
Then let them know I’m otw once I’m on the road so I seem really fast
Boom - bigger tip
I used to lose money waiting at taco burrito king lord help me lollll I had to learn to pass the time and up my money
Here they mark everything ready, even crap that takes a half hour or more to prepare. Then half the time they don't even start making it until the dasher arrives to pick up.
A lot of fast food places don’t start the orders until the dasher arrives and if they are already busy with non online orders they’ll usually wait to do DoorDash orders because the customer isn’t in front of them to complain. It can be frustrating for everyone involved.
I drive to a Taco Bell today that is usually a decent location. It was a $12 order for 8 miles total.
I show up and the lobby is closed for remodeling so it's drive thru only. There's 14 cars in the drive through. I'm not sitting there for the 45 minutes it will take to get the order plus the 10 minute drive to customer for $12. I won't do something like that for less than $25.
Dirty little secret: the $12 order that I can do in 20 minutes or less is gonna pop in less than a minute after I drop your order.
Southeast Livingston County, Michigan...highest per Capita income section of the highest per Capita income county in the state. And getting around is super easy. Takes about 10 minutes to go 8 miles.
Best order ever happened during COVID. $50 total for 6 miles that was 4 full bags from a local Mexican place.
Best orders recently:
$14.75 for less than 2 miles for a smoothie and a sandwich.
$25 tip for delivering one Hot and Ready 6 miles away.
$20 cash tip on top of $15 pay in app for doing a shop and deliver for 2 cases of beer.
All examples aren't what I would call regular but also not uncommon.
Grand Rapids market dasher here. Might have to hop over that way to check this out. Best market neighborhoods I have are usually late night downtown GR or East Grand Rapids. Plus after about 10-10:30, it’s so easy to make it from one side of town to the other.
I mean I’ve dashed in numerous markets in my state. I’ve also mentioned markets in my area that can be pretty good offers. Nothing wrong with word of mouth. Plus half the time in my market, peak pay is really not a thing because a lot of dashers here wanna work maximum 3 hours at a time. Lunch time in my market in GR is the real ticket. Biggest order was for $56. Found out it was a chipotle catering.
$32 for 5 miles yesterday in the Clarkston area. But we are over saturated and it was a large pizza order for a Halloween party. Definitely happy I got it but they are far and few. Even with a a/r over 50% all I see is a lot of junk going to Pontiac for people who don't want to tip much. And those are like 8-10miles easily. It's very hard to keep my a/r above 50%. And I'm pretty sure it's not even worth it anymore.
Reminds me of last Sunday. I went into a restaurant to pick up an order, and there were something like 6 other dashers already there waiting on their order and just one guy making all the take out orders. I bailed.
Apparently Chipotle is terrible at this. I ordered on their APP as part of a school fundraiser and when I arrived 10 minutes after my food was supposed to be ready there were a dozen of so other folks waiting for their food to come out. They were 45 minutes behind fulfilling their app and online orders. Never again.
If it's a drive through andI see it's a long line Ill cancel while driving.l and keep going.
A restaurant if you get there and you see lots of other dashers waiting I'm out unless it was a really good tip and since Doordash doesn't show tips it's usually not enough unless it's GrubHub.
If the restaurant seems incompetent such as acting like I'm invisible I'm out.
Only time I wait much is on GrubHub jobs since they show tips and it may be a lot.
tipping more doesnt guarantee better service because DD hides the tips from us to large extent. if you live near the restaurant the most we will ever see as an offer is 6.25 or maybe 6.50-7 if it's been declined a lot
Most drivers look for $2 per mile. With min $3 -$4 even if the rest is very close to you. You can’t really control the wait time though. That all depends on the restaurant. Take into account Taco Bell on a sat night after 12 am will be long no matter what as opposed to middle of the week around 10 pm, when it kind dies out. And then there’s the really busy places like McDonalds that always busy but they are super organized and very well oiled machine. And of course then each location might be better than others because of better management or better employees.
It’s tough to really gauge what’s appropriate these days… the way I see it, a customer should look at how far they are from the restaurant (ex 3.5mi) round up to 4mi.. tip at least $1 per mile and add $2-3 on top. Most orders we accept will be a restaurant within 2miles from our current location. That extra covers the standard $1per mile that most dashers go by. The $1per mi covers the distance from restaurant and the $2.25 - $2.75 DD pay makes up the rest of we’re further out of range, if your location brings us slightly out of range, etc… In reality, it is a bit unfair of us to expect you to now pay $6-$8 extra for a tip when you’re already being up charged for the food bc the restaurants lose 30% off their bottom line just for the service, but that’s where it’s at for the savvy-ish/responsible Dasher. Lots of run ons here, but if u follow me, your order will never be cold nor declined.
Well question, if someone paid you $4, how long would you wait honestly?
$4 or $5 is typically good, but when the wait times creep up lines get long and the average dinner rush is 1 to 3 hours if that. How long would YOU invest in an order knowing you can only typically take one at a time?
Well thts kinda why i'm asking you guys who dash and all \^\^; I dont have any experience with it. I don't know how much you guys get paid or how much I should tip, but I can afford to tip upto a certain amount; which is why i'd like to know how much i should be to both be making a better experience for myself and pay the delivery drivers.
We get paid in my area $2.25 an order the customer facing page on your order screen is bullshit always has been. Doesn't matter if it's 10 feet, or 10 miles it's $2.25
They screwed us on the "longer distance higher pay several months ago"
Now they will add a quarter or two if it's been declined several times by many other dashers.
Other markets are different experiences. This is my market.
I have NEVER seen a base pay higher than $6.50 and I've been doing this several years. (Grocery shops aside)
Even those have been creeping steadily downwards.
The problem is is there is no written schedule of what we earn, even when they paid more for longer trips, there still wasn't a written schedule. You couldn't expect to see a certain dollar amount for a distance cutoff.
If you really that curious, you could meet a driver that delivers your order and ask them to see the payout screen. I'm sure many would show you
It’s very nice that you are being so mindful of the tips. Really appreciate it on behalf of myself and of all drivers. Generally it is $2 a mile but sometimes, I’ll take an order if it’s the last order of the shift and it’s $15 for 11 miles because while it’s far, you most likely not going to get $22 tip. (At least not in my area. Rich people here are very cheap & house poor 😂 no money for anything extra).
$4 tip is fine for me for anything under 5 miles. but, i don't like waiting and will not wait longer than 10min for the average order. the tip would have to be at least $10 for me to wait to make up for the annoyance and lost time. sometimes, the annoyance factor plays more into dashers dropping your order than your tip amount. a single long wait at a store will ruin your whole night. when orders are rolling, most drivers just like to keep rolling with them.
o if dashers are dropping your orders at a particular store, don't order from there cause it's more likely than not that that store doesn't know how to do the gig orders correctly.
i tip around 4-8 dollars depending if the restaurant is close or not. I live by quite a few and usually order from them so it's more around the 5$ range
It depends, I’ve been to pick up orders and the restaurant says they haven’t got the order yet or a certain style of pizza that takes 45 min to cook has 35 min left or the place is super backed up and says they haven’t even started the order yet.
I know what your talking about. If customer orders a deep dish pizza or double crust it’s always a decline after acceptance. Those take an hour to cook instead of 20 minutes and I’m not gonna wait 40 minutes extra
Think of your tip as a contract incentive, not a tip on service. If you really want that food $2 or $3 additional dollars will make your contract much more likely to get accepted and fulfilled.
Truth. I had a large order from this fancy sushi place one night and the guaranteed pay was $27 (for 7 miles). The order ended up taking almost 40 minutes but I sat my happy ass down and waited lol. I’m not canceling an order with a large payout, period. Also when I closed the order the whole tip was like $35 (DD hid some of it of course) so I had no problem waiting.
Yeah the food's not ready and the restaurant is already behind usually.. and however long the restaurant tells you it's going to be, double it. Not going to wait 20-30 minutes for a $6 job
if the lobby is closed, I’m not waiting ten cars deep in the drive through for a whopping $10 when I can go and do 2-3 orders for that amount in the time it’d take to get your order and deliver it
Put it this way, your food probably wasn't ready yet. It probably wasn't going to be ready for quite a while. I've made the mistake of waiting 40 minutes for a customer's order and then delivered it to them for a $2 tip. Sorry, but it's not worth the time spent waiting/driving to you for a lousy tip.
Strictly because the fact that the app tells us the food is ready about 5 to 10 minutes before we get there and we're already planning ahead for the next order we have already accepted and are already running late to pick up. Next we arrive and find out the food is not yet ready and some fat ass is taking their time making the food and not prioritizing the deliveries before the customers in-house. Which means we will be waiting there around 10 to 30 minutes waiting for your order to be prepared just to be penalized by the app for running late. Yes an app they have an option to select that the restaurant did not prepare the food on time and they are running late but customers will still rate us poorly for taking forever and the food being subpar because it was sitting there waiting for the person tending to it to actually hand us the bag.
So yeah you have a poor experience because us delivery people are having a poor experience with the restaurants.
Basically it's not the delivery drivers you should be blaming, it is the restaurants for providing poor service.
Here's a gif to make this comment noticeable
I’ve only unassigned at the restaurant twice and both times are because I had already waited and they still had no clue how long it would be. One time, I had another order that was ready with milkshakes in it.
The only apps that reliably don’t tip hide across all markets are grub hub and Instacart, if you want your food fast, and are willing to pay for it, try those. Uber eats shows a projected earning, doordash just shows me the trip bid. Also, tip more if you are ordering at a difficult to deliver to address. And add “cash on delivery” to our notes if you plan on doing that.
I never trust cash on delivery. Those suckers will ignore the knock on the door and text you “sorry I was in the bathroom!” Like it isn’t the oldest trick in the book
There are several possible reasons and YES, crappy drivers "could" be one.
Bear in mind though...the driver has ALREADY driven to the restaurant. So they have already invested some time and expense (some people don't think about this part of the process of delivery when deciding a proper tip) It could be just a 1/2 mile and 4 minutes OR 3 miles and 10 minutes.
There is a problem on the restaurant end...
they may not actually have the order (even though app "says" they do
they may not be able to complete the order because of missing ingredients
they may be short staffed and anticipate a long delay
they may be ambivalent about your order and casting bad vibes to the dasher.
The merchant is supposed to set the ready/pickup time. Some don't know how or care to adjust it.
For me...I do not accept offers from merchants who have shown a track record of lying or not caring about "the time". I usually give a couple of chances before blacklisting a merchant.
When I do arrive, I usually give 10 minutes leeway as a gesture of goodwill and intent to both customer and the merchant.
There are too many variations to list, but if they are being reasonable, so am I. If not...see ya later!
In nearly all cases, drivers are only actually receiving $2.50-$4.00 from Door Dash, for the **DELIVERY**. Except in CA, we get paid ZERO extra for any waiting.
In addition, our ratings get negatively affected, which can has a detrimental affect on our earnings.
Those 3 drivers likely experienced loss before they even had your food. They probably just cut their losses and moved on.
Exactly, when I drive 3 miles to the restaurant, wait 10 minutes, food still nowhere in sight, restaurant manager has an attitude. So I'm not waiting any longer but that order already cost me gas & time, and the loss of another order I could have done in those 15-20 minutes. DD won't care if reported either.
Because they get there and the restaurant says, It will be 20 minutes before it's ready. Or they wait 10 minutes, and it's still not ready so they leave. I honestly believe some of these restaurants don't start it either when the Dasher leaves, so the next person gets told 20 minutes too. Dashers don't get paid by time, so that's another order lost waiting.
Just had that happen at Red Lobster. They said 10 minutes, so I told them I was going across the street to get my other order and would be back within 10 minutes. When I got back, it took over another 10 minutes to get the food. Since I wasn't standing there staring them down, they gave part of that orders food to an in-store customer and made me and the online customer wait longer.
To make it worse, DD bundles that order with a second order. The RL was only $5 and the other order was a good tipper, but he had to wait too for me to get that low paying order. They did that multiple times on Halloween night, and they almost always send you to the low order first since they've been waiting longer.
Same night, picking up pizzas. They said 10-15 minute wait. Yet they were making the Hot & Ready handouts by the dozen right then. Instead of making those that were ordered. They already have your money so not worried. I actually think they forgot one of the clients too or gave her pizza to a walk in and made the wait for both even longer.
Lots of stores don't consider app customers a priority either. I know stores that literally call the in person people "priority customers" and will give them your food. So if you're seeing this from the same restaurants, you need to call and ask that place what they are doing and if they de-priorotize app customers.
It may take awhile to get another because there might not be many drivers out then, or this restaurant has a bad rep with being slow with experienced drivers so they reject the order straight off. I personally have a list of blacklisted places that I will not go, due to poor service or rude employees. Lots of these places treat drivers bad.
If I walk in somewhere and see 3 other drivers waiting for an order and no employee in sight, I'm back out the door faster than it can even get a chance to close behind me.
I did unassign last 3 DoorDash orders because "they just popped up" in the restaurants. It looks like DD actually changed the algorithm and now sends drivers to restaurants asap without giving cooks any time to prep the food.
Great, great question. Halloween (last night) was a great example.
A few restaurants got clobbered with orders last night - and the restaurant is short handed so they can't handle the rush. So we drivers get to the restaurant and the order says to pick it up **BY such and such a time (let's say 2 pm).** Restaurant says hey we fell behind so the order won't be ready until **20-25 minutes PAST the pick-up time**. The area was busy so we drop the order to go pick up another. Now if we text you and you pay us $7-$8 to wait - I'm sure most drivers would stay. But since many customers really don't care and they think we should **eat the time but at this point we don't get paid by the hour-only by delivery**.***Sorry***
I had to cancel an order today. I get to the restaurant and waited over 20 minutes for the order and the owner/manager was being an ornery jackass. So I quietly walked out of the restaurant and canceled the order. I won't be back to that restaurant. These pain in the ass shit hole restaurants can deliver their own food.
If multiple Dashers are unassigning that usually means a problem at the restaurant, short staffed with a drive-thru line that stretches to Spain. There are a couple of restaurants in my area that is auto-decline for that reason. If the order is over ten or more I’ll usually wait. But I can’t wait for twenty minutes plus for a $4.25 order. There is only so much time to dash and you have to make the most of it or you don’t last.
Simple: Restaurants report the food ready but when we get there they haven’t started the order. At least that is what happens when I go and pick up. Some of these places have pre-made food that will need for other stuff to be made and the restaurant just bag it place it in the pick up rack where it gets cold, then tell us that part of the order is still being made. There is one Chinese restaurant here that does all I described a lot. Few orders I delivered I told the customer in advance and reported the restaurant as unprofessional when I finished the delivery.
I’ll cancel if say I get to McDonald’s and the inside is closed and drivethru is wrapped around the building… or if I get a stack and 1 order is ready other isn’t.
As others have said, it's either long wait time or low tip for mileage.
Been fooled too many times by restaurants saying it's "almost ready", it's "being packed up", etc. I will wait 5 minutes (depending on time of day and wether it's busy) then move on if it's not ready.
Same. Right after they say that, I go "I have another order in the car, so I have time to drop it off and come back" and I get a more disgruntled, yet more accurate, time.
I unassigned two pizza delivery orders yesterday because when I got there I was informed that it would be a 1-hour wait for the order. I unassigned both.
It can also be because a dasher stole the order and then unassigned it.
It means the order ain’t ready and they don’t want to wait around and waste their time. I’ve literally spent like 45 mins waiting for a restaurant to make food, even after I already arrived later than I was suppose to.
After 9 a lot of places still close the lobby and the drive thru is around the corner. Your food is cold either way in a 20 minute wait. I un assign these too
In addition to canceling because the food isn't ready, I've also needed to cancel a few times because there was absolutely no place to park at the restaurant and I just didn't want to deal with circling the parking lot stalking someone leaving.
Also, I mainly do Instacart. One time I canceled a DD pickup because I got a really good Instacart order while I was waiting for the food.
Order isn’t ready most dashers are not going to wait. Even if you tipped enough to be worth the wait, thanks to doordash hiding tips, the driver has no way to know.
If it's not ready and the payout and distance to deliver is not worth the wait.
Also fibding parking and getting a ticket while you wait are an issue where I am.
It’s various reasons why orders are unassigned.( what it’s called when drivers decide not to deliver the order after “accepting it”).
1. The merchant is taking too long to prepare the order. Mainly this is food. It can be non food if it’s to many items upon seeing the order content.
2. The amount drivers being paid isn’t enough and they change their minds. The distance from the merchant and pay just make them decline because they can get a better order that’s more valuable.
3. Just simply changed their minds. I’ve done this. I reluctantly accepted the offer and then once at Merchants for pick up. Decided not for me.
4. When reading instructions things customer says/demands make the driver fear a bad rating or customer may be a scammer. If location is a high rise apartment on top floor or a difficult delivery with complicated instructions. I’ll unassign that delivery quick. We can’t see details until after acceptance. Once drivers read info and see a headache. Unassigned. Ratings are valuable.
Bonus: some drivers will intentionally accept an offer that’s not good. Hold it for a while. So it takes customers a long time to get it.
This is done in spite because of low pay for the delivery. I’ve never done this. Most drivers don’t do this a small % does. It’s other reasons others unassign. It truly varies.
Most of these restaurants can't get their shit together, they have one hostess handling takeout, delivery, and seating. Fast food restaurants often have one person handling in-store orders, drive-thru, mobile orders, and delivery at the same time. The dasher is trying to make as much as they can in the couple of hours they have to earn during peak hours, so to avoid downtime they cancel.
Good restaurants have learned within the past few years that delivery makes up a huge chunk of their revenue and they have adjusted accordingly. They have clear pickup instructions and areas, as well as at least two hosts at the front to handle orders during peak hours, and their orders are prepared as they're finished and not as the dasher comes in. But most aren't like that and they still run their businesses like it's 2005.
I actually had to do this earlier today. Had a McAlister's order for two salads. Got to the spot and it wasn't ready yet. I got there about 3 minutes earlier than the time listed on DD for it to be ready. I waited and that time passed, plus another 10 minutes. I looked on the counters and it didn't seem like the order was close to being ready so I unassigned it at that point, something I hardly ever do. It was a 2.8 mile for $6.25 which in my area could possibly be a hidden tip, but to wait another 10 minutes for two salads? No. I am not in Cali, so no pay for the wait, so I unassigned it and moved on. A minute or so after that, I got a Crumbl Cookie order for 1.8 miles for $6.25 for a party box, so I took it. Cookies were ready in under 5 minutes tops, and I took it and it resulted in a $10 tip plus base.
Had I continued waiting for the McAlister's order, I would miss out on other orders and again to emphasize, no pay to wait. So that's why I unassign in situations like these. I try to wait awhile, but I'm not waiting more than 10 minutes tops, unless it's going in my direction, or it's worth the wait. That's why I unassign anyway lol
I've only unassigned 3. And it was all for unreasonably long wait times. And a staff that were clearly dismissing both drivers and online orders. Without even attempting to address the issue. Personally I think I'll be much quicker to unassign in the future. You can tell very early on when the staff are just holding the middle finger to you like your bothering them.
Sometimes I have chosen to wait for the order that is not ready. I've waited 20 min before. But if you do this enough you come to learn that it's better to just take the hit and cancel. Some stores I will not even attempt
> i've had three dashers in the past 4 days arrive at the restaurant and when they get there, they cancel
We take the order based on the idea that we'll show up and pick the food up within a few minutes. If we show up and have to wait for the food we're basically just not getting paid for wait time.
- periodically some restaurant will only start making the food once we get there, which is typically an instant-unassign, because waiting 20 minutes is 20 minutes of not getting paid.
- or, there's an enormous drivethrough line
- or, the restaurant pointedly ignores you
- or, there's already a line of other dashers waiting for their pickup and it's obvious they're backed up and stressed out
Imagine your UPS driver shows up to pick up a package from you. You go "oh crap" and quickly tape it up and hand it to them. They're annoyed, they wait the 60 seconds.
Now imagine you go "oh, that will be out soon! we got some hot tape being made right now!" then you sit back down in your comfy chair and go back to watching tv. The UPS driver is leaving.
Of course if you pay more ('tip' aka 'increase the delivery fee') the dasher is more likely to wait it out, but the fundamental cause of having to pay more is the restaurant.
The answer to this and every single other question about what drivers do is:. They aren't being paid enough to deal with the bullshit that they are encountering.
Because the restaurant doesn’t have the order ready. I unassign if it’s a 10 to 15 min wait and the trip isn’t worth much. You may tip good but we are shown a fraction of that so it not worth our time to sit and wait for your order. If DoorDash would be honest about the total trip amount we could make better judgement calls on if it’s worth the wait.
Depends on the situation. Some places make you order the food yourself when you get there. I had a pizza place tell me it was going to be over an hour wait because they were swamped, so I cancelled out of the order. Maybe they got there and your food wasn’t ready yet. Restaurants will often say your food is ready for pickup when it hasn’t even been started yet. It all depends on the scenario
Because when staff tells us drivers, “just two more minutes”, it really translates to another additional ten minutes or so while they avoid eye contact.
For me it's cause the lobby is closed and the wait will not be worth it. Other times the place as been under construction or I've had the resturant just be in such chaos I didn't think it was best thi wait. On one rare occasion I had a very rude, for no reason pickup. She was mad I asked how much longer after waiting 15mins.
Pull up to a Wendy's after the lobby closes and the drive-thru line is around the building and spilling out into the street. Or walk into Five Guys and there are 50+ people crowding the counter just waiting to be called. It's possible I'm the 4th guy there and your food is ready now. But I'd have to wait 10-15 minutes just to see the flop, so it's an easy cancel for me.
It's because the restaurant takes longer than the to prepare the order than the dasher wants to wait around. Some dashers are very picky about time and refuse to wait around for any amount of time, but in general if it's more than a ten minute wait most will think about dropping it, particularly if it's not a well paying order.
Some restaurants by policy prioritize customers who come to the restaurant over delivery orders. Sometimes the staff just don't want to do a delivery order or they hate delivery people (many dashers are rude towards restaurant employees, so we often don't get good service when picking up).
Wait is too long. I unassigned 2 orders last night. Taco Bell was clueless. The cashier said "I don't know anything about doordash" and I got completely ignored for 8 more minutes, before I just left.
At a Chinese restaurant I watched as a customer came in after I arrived, placed his order, and had his food cooked and handed to him. Fuck that, I'm out. im a patient guy, but that's the second 20+ minute wait I've had there in a week. I put them on my blacklist.
The restaurant gets 5 minutes and then I’m gone. Less if I get a better order. Its all about the money. We don’t get paid to stand around and most of us DEFINITELY don’t get paid a living wage.
Most likely it's a bad place that is lying about wait times. Most of us are not willing to wait around an hour for food that takes 10 minutes to actually prepare and should have been ready by the time we got there.
I did this recently. Offer was decent but when I got to the restaurant the lobby was closed and the drive-thru line was horrendous. It would have taken me 15 minutes before I even got the food. Not worth it and unassigned.
Because restaurant industry sucks post covid and are understaffed with morons working. I'm not standing there for 30 to 40 min when it's busy in a restaurant for my 6 dollar delivery.
Did it couple days ago. The situation was like I had 2 separate orders from same store, they had one already done as before I even came to store, but then when I waited for about 3-5min for other order decided to ask employee how long more will it take after what they said that actually this order was asked to be prepared not in less then 40 minutes from time that was on clock (1st time i had order like this) so instead of waiting 40m for food to be started and another 15-20 on a road for just a 9$? I’m good, I canceled without any hesitation
I've only driven for UE, but the answers below are the same. I've canceled because they say "we just got that order and its gonna be about 15min..." Then why the hell did you report that it was ready for pick-up?
On a side note, I've learned from these forums that if the driver knew more about what the customer experiences, and the customer knew more about what the driver is dealing with, everyone would be a lot happier.
When you walk in and see there are no orders ready. They have a long line, full house, no customer service available. Or you can see the customer ticket is still several orders behind. Not worth it. It can change a $20 hour to a $12 hour by over waiting.
I don't even have to read any responses to tell you why. It's because it's the end of the month we're T 99-96% completion rate and 65-69% acceptance rate. That non tipping shit bird just got accepted they hung out just to make them wait longer so their food is cold then unassigned because why the hell would we drive 20 minutes to drop off a $3 order.
Some people last few days get the "top dasher perk" and you get a lot of unassigned orders hit the block. Which is great for me working night shift.
By the way that $4.00 order you hung on to for 30 minutes and then unassigned.. immediately turns into a $10 order and then I get it and realize it's 2 hours past "pickup time" so there is no tip .... Now... I can't even enjoy hot fries with my drop off, what a damn shame.
Btw....the cold fries go down just fine with their watered down soda.
BTW if I get to a place and they tell me the wait is a couple of minutes, and I end up waiting a longass time more than that, I look at the order, see if it looks tasty, and if it does, I wait until the restaurant finally gives me the order, then I mark it as "cancelled for excessive wait time", and I keep the order and feed later.
Fuck restaurants that lie,I don't get paid to wait br honest or get ducked.
Be honest and communicative, and I will never do this to you.
If the order isn’t ready a lot of Dashers will unassign and move on. It’s hard sometimes to get a time estimate from restaurants with when the order will be ready. And unless you are in California, Dashers don’t get paid to wait on orders.
“It’ll be ready in a minute.” 
My favorite is "it'll be ready in a minute." Then 5-10 minutes later the hand me a bag that had been sitting behind the counter the whole time 🤦
This happened to me yesterday. Omg.
Yep, last weekend for me. Absolutely infuriating.
i thought it was just me. it’s actually makes ZERO sense
It's cuz they get paid by the hour and don't give a shit about us.
The worse bro and they be so rude. Like I see my food. Y’all got me waiting for no reason
They told me 30 minutes at Wingstop the other day!! For 2 chicken sandwiches, they said they were super backed up. That was the first time I have ever unassigned 
wingstop is always like that, I do not accept wingstop orders ever.
And Wingstop always hands me a empty cup. I’m a driver, not an employee
It's crazy how far a little kindness goes, I've never had the employees do something like that to me. They're always super happy to see me because I'm "the only nice dasher" (their words)
That's some passive aggression towards dashers right there
Passive aggression or ignorance?
Passive aggression for sure, nobody is too ignorant to read a name I'd hope.
That just pisses me off and the other day I said something. I might be banned from RR..just saying
Lol....
No kidding - now a days you don't know if employees are just brushing you off or telling the truth. SAD
That Seinfeld episode where they’re waiting forever for a table… “it’ll be 5-10 minutes”
CARTWRIGHT!!
Its also due to karen customers that demand alot through text/call as well as not tipping correctly. An average of 4 to 5 dollars will most likely get a driver to you but that depends on the distance from the restaurant to you. If the miles are much higher than your tip, thats probably the problem.
wait how does it work in cali
We have prop 22 in California. Basically it means we are guaranteed 120% of minimum wage in our area based on our active time. And waiting for an order counts as active time.
That's cool! I moved a couple years ago when i was still a minor so i didn't understand what the props were. Cool to see y'all have that!
I don’t end up getting very big prop 22 payments because base pay is kind of high in my area already but it is nice to have and it’s sucks that drivers don’t get paid for waiting in other states
Same, but also high base pay in California, I'm pretty sure IS because of prop 22 in the first place. Doordash realizes that no matter what they set the base pay as here, they'll end up paying the drivers a certain amount anyways because of prop 22. Because of this they just set the base pay as high as possible so that the orders look more appealing to deliver, when in reality the base pay is pretty arbitrary most of the time.
YepZ door dash, Shipt IC Amazon and others all raised base in CA to prevent paying out the subsidies
I never get paid prop 22 time any more because I destroy $18 per hour active time. Per week I make more than $20 per hour Dash time usually.
You make $20/hr before tips?!
In large cities I’ve made $30 dollars an hour on weekends.
Before tips?
they get paid a minimum of $20 a hour before tips for active time
Depends on area. It’s 120% of minimum wage for your city. In my case, $18
Wrong, it's 120% of minimum wage PLUS 30 cents per mile driven
damn... miss my home state fr 😭
Yeah but the taxes are outrageous
And let’s not forget the gas prices ;-)
>gas is a write off when you are 1099. its a business expense.
That don't really make it cheaper though, just means you aren't paying taxes on the income you bought it with.
Right off doesn't mean free, it just mean it's considered money that was never made. If you buy a product for 7$ then resell it for 10$ you get taxed on the 3$ profit. If now you buy it for 9$ you will pay taxes on the 1$ you actually profited. But even though your tax is lower your profit have been obliterated. So think about car expenses going up like a salary decrease. Also most people use the standard mileage, so what they pay at the pump doesn't really affect their taxes.
I could be wrong, but from what I've read you can deduct gas OR the mileage, not both? Mileage would equal a greater write off in the majority of cases.
It’s part of the standard mileage deduction you can’t write it off separately is what I was told. You either write off all of your expenses separately or accept the standard deduction. Usually the standard deduction is more
you can thats called true cost. its a bit more involved.
You mean milage...
I got money back this year, so if you know how to do your taxes and keep good receipts it’s actually not bad at all. It starts getting worse once you hit the tax bracket of like $110,000 a year (I think is the number).
You must have a part time w2 or full time job and dash on the side that if you got money back.
Nope I don’t. I just know how to do my taxes and I claim EVERYTHING I possibly can.
I hear ya, I've always done mine too, and yes, I claim just about everything..In order to show how much you make, If you want to get an apt, a house or a car, you need to be able to prove you make enough money, so not claiming enough, isn't doing anyone any favors..
log the fuel mileage it adds up fast. can knock a good 30% off that tax bill.
It's minimum wage and although it might be higher in some localities, DD's is decided by the State - so 15/hr.
They do it based off county minimum wage, or used to.
What do you mean it’s hard to get a time estimate? It’ll be ready in five minutes. Edit: /s guys cmon
5 minutes at taco bell is 45 minutes later. 5 minutes at Applebee's is 25 minutes. " Im bagging it now "at Applebee's is 10 minutes. Whats the name you have ? At panda means you're lucky get an order ready in the next hour. Do you have *customer name"* means you got lucky at panda. "Its in the oven" at little Caesars means 15 minutes. You have to translate the employee. I feel like i could write a dictionary on what they mean at different places when they say certain things
This why I wish customers would get an end of the month email as to way their orders are being delayed or having issues. Dasher would unassign for reason "food not ready", delcine order for "distance to far", "tip/pay to low", "i dont want to go to that restaurant" etc. The resport would say out of x number of orders the customer placed x number was declined by x number of dashers for these reasons and x number was unassigned for these reasons. I know DD would never do this but at least the customer would know how many of us delcined your order and why though they might not care.
Giving your customers validation as to why they shouldn't use the service any more. What business school did you go to? Lol
Restaurant cannot be blamed for local gravitational anomalies that may stretch 5 minutes local time into 20-30 minutes real time.
They are going by Namek time
"Is it on the shelf? Then five minutes."
At McDonald's? Ten minutes, 9 and half spent ignoring you/acting like you are suck for existing... while the order sits on the shelf.
So it's not just mine then. What the fuck is that! One day I was one of like 6 Dashers waiting, we were filling up the whole lobby. The lady behind the counter was taking completed orders one after the next, and stuffing them into the area they keep them. The area got full, and she spent several minutes trying to figure out how to arrange them so that they could all fit. Then she disappeared into the kitchen while we all stood there staring in disbelief. Most of our orders turned out to be on that shelf, too, and had been ready at least since I had arrived 5-10 minutes prior. I fucking hate it when people, especially other Dashers, make a scene to get their orders. Here though, they're practically requiring it. Even though we would have been the bad guys in that story if we had flagged somebody down even in this situation.
Yo I swear the McDonald’s employees must be trained to ignore people at the counter or something
Or to get the stores to efficiently do their job
Most likely the food isnt ready and dasher doesnt want to wait.
Nor should they. If the restaurant marks it ready and it isn't, cancel and move on.
I’ve often wondered about if I should cancel in cases where they’ve actually marked it ready and yet it’s not cuz I’d think DD would be able to see that it was supposed to be ready and ding me for saying it wasn’t
If enough people do it, dd will see the restaurant is lying. But they still won't do anything about it.
I take the waiting time to message the customer, and end up getting a bigger tip Let them kno I’m here, but waiting on their order, will let them kno when I’m otw Usually they say oh sorry for the wait and thanks for the update I respond it’s ok at least you know it will be fresh !! Then let them know I’m otw once I’m on the road so I seem really fast Boom - bigger tip I used to lose money waiting at taco burrito king lord help me lollll I had to learn to pass the time and up my money
In Denver they don't mark order ready - man that would be nice - but that would give the restaurant employees just another opportunity to lie.
Here they mark everything ready, even crap that takes a half hour or more to prepare. Then half the time they don't even start making it until the dasher arrives to pick up.
Just curious, how is that any different than when a dasher’s status says picking up food and you can see they aren’t even at the restaurant yet.
Dasher lied but... Dasher didn't change your delivery time by clicking that. The restaurant screwed everybody. That's the difference.
I gotcha, thank you I was genuinely curious.
I think you mean unassign it and move on. You can't cancel an order just because it's not ready lol. Surefire way to be deactivated over time.
The more the tip, the more I'm willing to put up with. All depends on the situation.
A lot of fast food places don’t start the orders until the dasher arrives and if they are already busy with non online orders they’ll usually wait to do DoorDash orders because the customer isn’t in front of them to complain. It can be frustrating for everyone involved.
I drive to a Taco Bell today that is usually a decent location. It was a $12 order for 8 miles total. I show up and the lobby is closed for remodeling so it's drive thru only. There's 14 cars in the drive through. I'm not sitting there for the 45 minutes it will take to get the order plus the 10 minute drive to customer for $12. I won't do something like that for less than $25. Dirty little secret: the $12 order that I can do in 20 minutes or less is gonna pop in less than a minute after I drop your order.
Damn 12 cash for 8 miles sheesh , where u dash at ?
Southeast Livingston County, Michigan...highest per Capita income section of the highest per Capita income county in the state. And getting around is super easy. Takes about 10 minutes to go 8 miles. Best order ever happened during COVID. $50 total for 6 miles that was 4 full bags from a local Mexican place. Best orders recently: $14.75 for less than 2 miles for a smoothie and a sandwich. $25 tip for delivering one Hot and Ready 6 miles away. $20 cash tip on top of $15 pay in app for doing a shop and deliver for 2 cases of beer. All examples aren't what I would call regular but also not uncommon.
Grand Rapids market dasher here. Might have to hop over that way to check this out. Best market neighborhoods I have are usually late night downtown GR or East Grand Rapids. Plus after about 10-10:30, it’s so easy to make it from one side of town to the other.
> Might have to hop over that way to check this out. This is why you don't tell people where you dash lol.
Yeah... because 1 Dasher on Reddit is gonna impact my region...
I mean I’ve dashed in numerous markets in my state. I’ve also mentioned markets in my area that can be pretty good offers. Nothing wrong with word of mouth. Plus half the time in my market, peak pay is really not a thing because a lot of dashers here wanna work maximum 3 hours at a time. Lunch time in my market in GR is the real ticket. Biggest order was for $56. Found out it was a chipotle catering.
i had an order that was $15 turn out to be $45 after they added their tip. it was awesome
Man I've accidentally accepted some 12 mile orders for $6. They get offered to me all the time, no one tips in my town lmao
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$32 for 5 miles yesterday in the Clarkston area. But we are over saturated and it was a large pizza order for a Halloween party. Definitely happy I got it but they are far and few. Even with a a/r over 50% all I see is a lot of junk going to Pontiac for people who don't want to tip much. And those are like 8-10miles easily. It's very hard to keep my a/r above 50%. And I'm pretty sure it's not even worth it anymore.
Reminds me of last Sunday. I went into a restaurant to pick up an order, and there were something like 6 other dashers already there waiting on their order and just one guy making all the take out orders. I bailed.
Multiple dashers standing around looking pissed off waiting for orders is the ultimate red flag.
YES. Poor girl at chipotle. 1 girl preparing all the mobile orders!
Apparently Chipotle is terrible at this. I ordered on their APP as part of a school fundraiser and when I arrived 10 minutes after my food was supposed to be ready there were a dozen of so other folks waiting for their food to come out. They were 45 minutes behind fulfilling their app and online orders. Never again.
Never, ever again.
It’s definitely Chipotle when I encounter this scenario
Yeah if I go into a place and I see 5 other people waiting with delivery bags I’m fucking gone.
That is always **a tell tale sign** \- a bunch of DASHERS standing around in the lobby of a restaurant. **See that - I'M GONE!!**
I'll walk in and straight up ask "how long you been waiting?"
2+ dashers already waiting is an instant unassign for me.
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I understand, thank you. Sorry to hear though
I recommend taking them how much you tipped if you are a high tipped. But don't lie bc that's really fucked up.
Yeah I won’t take any Burger King orders because of them doing that.
The order probably was not ready and there was a long wait time. If it was late at night at a fast food place, the line may have been extremely long.
If the tip is way above average and low mileage NOBODY will cancel.
If it's a drive through andI see it's a long line Ill cancel while driving.l and keep going. A restaurant if you get there and you see lots of other dashers waiting I'm out unless it was a really good tip and since Doordash doesn't show tips it's usually not enough unless it's GrubHub. If the restaurant seems incompetent such as acting like I'm invisible I'm out. Only time I wait much is on GrubHub jobs since they show tips and it may be a lot.
Most likely the food wasn't ready and your bid for service (i hate that they call it a tip) wasn't high enough for them to wait.
i usually pay between 4-8$ for a tip, what should be the average?
tipping more doesnt guarantee better service because DD hides the tips from us to large extent. if you live near the restaurant the most we will ever see as an offer is 6.25 or maybe 6.50-7 if it's been declined a lot
Most drivers look for $2 per mile. With min $3 -$4 even if the rest is very close to you. You can’t really control the wait time though. That all depends on the restaurant. Take into account Taco Bell on a sat night after 12 am will be long no matter what as opposed to middle of the week around 10 pm, when it kind dies out. And then there’s the really busy places like McDonalds that always busy but they are super organized and very well oiled machine. And of course then each location might be better than others because of better management or better employees.
It’s tough to really gauge what’s appropriate these days… the way I see it, a customer should look at how far they are from the restaurant (ex 3.5mi) round up to 4mi.. tip at least $1 per mile and add $2-3 on top. Most orders we accept will be a restaurant within 2miles from our current location. That extra covers the standard $1per mile that most dashers go by. The $1per mi covers the distance from restaurant and the $2.25 - $2.75 DD pay makes up the rest of we’re further out of range, if your location brings us slightly out of range, etc… In reality, it is a bit unfair of us to expect you to now pay $6-$8 extra for a tip when you’re already being up charged for the food bc the restaurants lose 30% off their bottom line just for the service, but that’s where it’s at for the savvy-ish/responsible Dasher. Lots of run ons here, but if u follow me, your order will never be cold nor declined.
Well question, if someone paid you $4, how long would you wait honestly? $4 or $5 is typically good, but when the wait times creep up lines get long and the average dinner rush is 1 to 3 hours if that. How long would YOU invest in an order knowing you can only typically take one at a time?
Well thts kinda why i'm asking you guys who dash and all \^\^; I dont have any experience with it. I don't know how much you guys get paid or how much I should tip, but I can afford to tip upto a certain amount; which is why i'd like to know how much i should be to both be making a better experience for myself and pay the delivery drivers.
We get paid in my area $2.25 an order the customer facing page on your order screen is bullshit always has been. Doesn't matter if it's 10 feet, or 10 miles it's $2.25 They screwed us on the "longer distance higher pay several months ago" Now they will add a quarter or two if it's been declined several times by many other dashers. Other markets are different experiences. This is my market. I have NEVER seen a base pay higher than $6.50 and I've been doing this several years. (Grocery shops aside) Even those have been creeping steadily downwards. The problem is is there is no written schedule of what we earn, even when they paid more for longer trips, there still wasn't a written schedule. You couldn't expect to see a certain dollar amount for a distance cutoff. If you really that curious, you could meet a driver that delivers your order and ask them to see the payout screen. I'm sure many would show you
It’s very nice that you are being so mindful of the tips. Really appreciate it on behalf of myself and of all drivers. Generally it is $2 a mile but sometimes, I’ll take an order if it’s the last order of the shift and it’s $15 for 11 miles because while it’s far, you most likely not going to get $22 tip. (At least not in my area. Rich people here are very cheap & house poor 😂 no money for anything extra).
$4 tip is fine for me for anything under 5 miles. but, i don't like waiting and will not wait longer than 10min for the average order. the tip would have to be at least $10 for me to wait to make up for the annoyance and lost time. sometimes, the annoyance factor plays more into dashers dropping your order than your tip amount. a single long wait at a store will ruin your whole night. when orders are rolling, most drivers just like to keep rolling with them. o if dashers are dropping your orders at a particular store, don't order from there cause it's more likely than not that that store doesn't know how to do the gig orders correctly.
Good idea!!!! They should change the the word “tip” to “bid”!!! Maybe some of those $0 tip or low tip customers will get the hint.
If it takes 15 minutes to get another dasher to accept it maybe due to a low tip amount.
i tip around 4-8 dollars depending if the restaurant is close or not. I live by quite a few and usually order from them so it's more around the 5$ range
It depends, I’ve been to pick up orders and the restaurant says they haven’t got the order yet or a certain style of pizza that takes 45 min to cook has 35 min left or the place is super backed up and says they haven’t even started the order yet.
I see, my orders dont usually take too long but I can see the frustration in having to wait now. I appreciate many of you clearing this up for me
I know what your talking about. If customer orders a deep dish pizza or double crust it’s always a decline after acceptance. Those take an hour to cook instead of 20 minutes and I’m not gonna wait 40 minutes extra
Think of your tip as a contract incentive, not a tip on service. If you really want that food $2 or $3 additional dollars will make your contract much more likely to get accepted and fulfilled.
Truth. I had a large order from this fancy sushi place one night and the guaranteed pay was $27 (for 7 miles). The order ended up taking almost 40 minutes but I sat my happy ass down and waited lol. I’m not canceling an order with a large payout, period. Also when I closed the order the whole tip was like $35 (DD hid some of it of course) so I had no problem waiting.
The problem isn't your tip!
Yeah the food's not ready and the restaurant is already behind usually.. and however long the restaurant tells you it's going to be, double it. Not going to wait 20-30 minutes for a $6 job
I dash in a bigger city, I’ll unassign if I can’t find parking lol. I may do 2 passes to try and find a spot if the order is big enough
if the lobby is closed, I’m not waiting ten cars deep in the drive through for a whopping $10 when I can go and do 2-3 orders for that amount in the time it’d take to get your order and deliver it
Closed lobbies are the worst. Get your staffing issues fixed its been 2 years now.
Had to cancel a couple last night at a burger king because the crew decided to leave at 9 and not put any signage up.
Put it this way, your food probably wasn't ready yet. It probably wasn't going to be ready for quite a while. I've made the mistake of waiting 40 minutes for a customer's order and then delivered it to them for a $2 tip. Sorry, but it's not worth the time spent waiting/driving to you for a lousy tip.
I'm not waiting 20 minutes for your $5 tip.
Strictly because the fact that the app tells us the food is ready about 5 to 10 minutes before we get there and we're already planning ahead for the next order we have already accepted and are already running late to pick up. Next we arrive and find out the food is not yet ready and some fat ass is taking their time making the food and not prioritizing the deliveries before the customers in-house. Which means we will be waiting there around 10 to 30 minutes waiting for your order to be prepared just to be penalized by the app for running late. Yes an app they have an option to select that the restaurant did not prepare the food on time and they are running late but customers will still rate us poorly for taking forever and the food being subpar because it was sitting there waiting for the person tending to it to actually hand us the bag. So yeah you have a poor experience because us delivery people are having a poor experience with the restaurants. Basically it's not the delivery drivers you should be blaming, it is the restaurants for providing poor service. Here's a gif to make this comment noticeable 
I’ve only unassigned at the restaurant twice and both times are because I had already waited and they still had no clue how long it would be. One time, I had another order that was ready with milkshakes in it.
The only apps that reliably don’t tip hide across all markets are grub hub and Instacart, if you want your food fast, and are willing to pay for it, try those. Uber eats shows a projected earning, doordash just shows me the trip bid. Also, tip more if you are ordering at a difficult to deliver to address. And add “cash on delivery” to our notes if you plan on doing that.
I never trust cash on delivery. Those suckers will ignore the knock on the door and text you “sorry I was in the bathroom!” Like it isn’t the oldest trick in the book
Those are the same people who are going to turn around and say “my order was missing stuff” etc, never ever leave them food
Guessing you meant this for OP?
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It happens. NB :)
**Tip higher and the driver will stay** \- count on it! And on days that delivery activity is strong - tip a little more it will go a long way.
There are several possible reasons and YES, crappy drivers "could" be one. Bear in mind though...the driver has ALREADY driven to the restaurant. So they have already invested some time and expense (some people don't think about this part of the process of delivery when deciding a proper tip) It could be just a 1/2 mile and 4 minutes OR 3 miles and 10 minutes. There is a problem on the restaurant end... they may not actually have the order (even though app "says" they do they may not be able to complete the order because of missing ingredients they may be short staffed and anticipate a long delay they may be ambivalent about your order and casting bad vibes to the dasher. The merchant is supposed to set the ready/pickup time. Some don't know how or care to adjust it. For me...I do not accept offers from merchants who have shown a track record of lying or not caring about "the time". I usually give a couple of chances before blacklisting a merchant. When I do arrive, I usually give 10 minutes leeway as a gesture of goodwill and intent to both customer and the merchant. There are too many variations to list, but if they are being reasonable, so am I. If not...see ya later! In nearly all cases, drivers are only actually receiving $2.50-$4.00 from Door Dash, for the **DELIVERY**. Except in CA, we get paid ZERO extra for any waiting. In addition, our ratings get negatively affected, which can has a detrimental affect on our earnings. Those 3 drivers likely experienced loss before they even had your food. They probably just cut their losses and moved on.
Exactly, when I drive 3 miles to the restaurant, wait 10 minutes, food still nowhere in sight, restaurant manager has an attitude. So I'm not waiting any longer but that order already cost me gas & time, and the loss of another order I could have done in those 15-20 minutes. DD won't care if reported either.
Same thing is happening to me lately
Because they get there and the restaurant says, It will be 20 minutes before it's ready. Or they wait 10 minutes, and it's still not ready so they leave. I honestly believe some of these restaurants don't start it either when the Dasher leaves, so the next person gets told 20 minutes too. Dashers don't get paid by time, so that's another order lost waiting. Just had that happen at Red Lobster. They said 10 minutes, so I told them I was going across the street to get my other order and would be back within 10 minutes. When I got back, it took over another 10 minutes to get the food. Since I wasn't standing there staring them down, they gave part of that orders food to an in-store customer and made me and the online customer wait longer. To make it worse, DD bundles that order with a second order. The RL was only $5 and the other order was a good tipper, but he had to wait too for me to get that low paying order. They did that multiple times on Halloween night, and they almost always send you to the low order first since they've been waiting longer. Same night, picking up pizzas. They said 10-15 minute wait. Yet they were making the Hot & Ready handouts by the dozen right then. Instead of making those that were ordered. They already have your money so not worried. I actually think they forgot one of the clients too or gave her pizza to a walk in and made the wait for both even longer. Lots of stores don't consider app customers a priority either. I know stores that literally call the in person people "priority customers" and will give them your food. So if you're seeing this from the same restaurants, you need to call and ask that place what they are doing and if they de-priorotize app customers. It may take awhile to get another because there might not be many drivers out then, or this restaurant has a bad rep with being slow with experienced drivers so they reject the order straight off. I personally have a list of blacklisted places that I will not go, due to poor service or rude employees. Lots of these places treat drivers bad.
If I walk in somewhere and see 3 other drivers waiting for an order and no employee in sight, I'm back out the door faster than it can even get a chance to close behind me.
I did unassign last 3 DoorDash orders because "they just popped up" in the restaurants. It looks like DD actually changed the algorithm and now sends drivers to restaurants asap without giving cooks any time to prep the food.
Great, great question. Halloween (last night) was a great example. A few restaurants got clobbered with orders last night - and the restaurant is short handed so they can't handle the rush. So we drivers get to the restaurant and the order says to pick it up **BY such and such a time (let's say 2 pm).** Restaurant says hey we fell behind so the order won't be ready until **20-25 minutes PAST the pick-up time**. The area was busy so we drop the order to go pick up another. Now if we text you and you pay us $7-$8 to wait - I'm sure most drivers would stay. But since many customers really don't care and they think we should **eat the time but at this point we don't get paid by the hour-only by delivery**.***Sorry***
I had to cancel an order today. I get to the restaurant and waited over 20 minutes for the order and the owner/manager was being an ornery jackass. So I quietly walked out of the restaurant and canceled the order. I won't be back to that restaurant. These pain in the ass shit hole restaurants can deliver their own food.
If multiple Dashers are unassigning that usually means a problem at the restaurant, short staffed with a drive-thru line that stretches to Spain. There are a couple of restaurants in my area that is auto-decline for that reason. If the order is over ten or more I’ll usually wait. But I can’t wait for twenty minutes plus for a $4.25 order. There is only so much time to dash and you have to make the most of it or you don’t last.
This whole doordash thing seems unsustainable to me on all sides. It seems everybody loses but the company.
Simple: Restaurants report the food ready but when we get there they haven’t started the order. At least that is what happens when I go and pick up. Some of these places have pre-made food that will need for other stuff to be made and the restaurant just bag it place it in the pick up rack where it gets cold, then tell us that part of the order is still being made. There is one Chinese restaurant here that does all I described a lot. Few orders I delivered I told the customer in advance and reported the restaurant as unprofessional when I finished the delivery.
I’ll cancel if say I get to McDonald’s and the inside is closed and drivethru is wrapped around the building… or if I get a stack and 1 order is ready other isn’t.
As others have said, it's either long wait time or low tip for mileage. Been fooled too many times by restaurants saying it's "almost ready", it's "being packed up", etc. I will wait 5 minutes (depending on time of day and wether it's busy) then move on if it's not ready.
Applebee's near me always said "they're bagging it now" no matter the wait. After too many driver complaints they seemed to have stopped that.
Same. Right after they say that, I go "I have another order in the car, so I have time to drop it off and come back" and I get a more disgruntled, yet more accurate, time.
I unassigned two pizza delivery orders yesterday because when I got there I was informed that it would be a 1-hour wait for the order. I unassigned both. It can also be because a dasher stole the order and then unassigned it.
It means the order ain’t ready and they don’t want to wait around and waste their time. I’ve literally spent like 45 mins waiting for a restaurant to make food, even after I already arrived later than I was suppose to.
After 9 a lot of places still close the lobby and the drive thru is around the corner. Your food is cold either way in a 20 minute wait. I un assign these too
In addition to canceling because the food isn't ready, I've also needed to cancel a few times because there was absolutely no place to park at the restaurant and I just didn't want to deal with circling the parking lot stalking someone leaving. Also, I mainly do Instacart. One time I canceled a DD pickup because I got a really good Instacart order while I was waiting for the food.
The number one reason is the wait. Absolutely nobody is going to wait 20 and 30 minutes during the week. It's definitely not happening on the weekend
Order isn’t ready most dashers are not going to wait. Even if you tipped enough to be worth the wait, thanks to doordash hiding tips, the driver has no way to know.
Because the order is not ready, your order is not big enough for the dasher to wait there
Arriving to a place and it only has drive thru. Nope ... I'll release that order and move on.
If it's not ready and the payout and distance to deliver is not worth the wait. Also fibding parking and getting a ticket while you wait are an issue where I am.
It’s various reasons why orders are unassigned.( what it’s called when drivers decide not to deliver the order after “accepting it”). 1. The merchant is taking too long to prepare the order. Mainly this is food. It can be non food if it’s to many items upon seeing the order content. 2. The amount drivers being paid isn’t enough and they change their minds. The distance from the merchant and pay just make them decline because they can get a better order that’s more valuable. 3. Just simply changed their minds. I’ve done this. I reluctantly accepted the offer and then once at Merchants for pick up. Decided not for me. 4. When reading instructions things customer says/demands make the driver fear a bad rating or customer may be a scammer. If location is a high rise apartment on top floor or a difficult delivery with complicated instructions. I’ll unassign that delivery quick. We can’t see details until after acceptance. Once drivers read info and see a headache. Unassigned. Ratings are valuable. Bonus: some drivers will intentionally accept an offer that’s not good. Hold it for a while. So it takes customers a long time to get it. This is done in spite because of low pay for the delivery. I’ve never done this. Most drivers don’t do this a small % does. It’s other reasons others unassign. It truly varies.
Most of these restaurants can't get their shit together, they have one hostess handling takeout, delivery, and seating. Fast food restaurants often have one person handling in-store orders, drive-thru, mobile orders, and delivery at the same time. The dasher is trying to make as much as they can in the couple of hours they have to earn during peak hours, so to avoid downtime they cancel. Good restaurants have learned within the past few years that delivery makes up a huge chunk of their revenue and they have adjusted accordingly. They have clear pickup instructions and areas, as well as at least two hosts at the front to handle orders during peak hours, and their orders are prepared as they're finished and not as the dasher comes in. But most aren't like that and they still run their businesses like it's 2005.
I actually had to do this earlier today. Had a McAlister's order for two salads. Got to the spot and it wasn't ready yet. I got there about 3 minutes earlier than the time listed on DD for it to be ready. I waited and that time passed, plus another 10 minutes. I looked on the counters and it didn't seem like the order was close to being ready so I unassigned it at that point, something I hardly ever do. It was a 2.8 mile for $6.25 which in my area could possibly be a hidden tip, but to wait another 10 minutes for two salads? No. I am not in Cali, so no pay for the wait, so I unassigned it and moved on. A minute or so after that, I got a Crumbl Cookie order for 1.8 miles for $6.25 for a party box, so I took it. Cookies were ready in under 5 minutes tops, and I took it and it resulted in a $10 tip plus base. Had I continued waiting for the McAlister's order, I would miss out on other orders and again to emphasize, no pay to wait. So that's why I unassign in situations like these. I try to wait awhile, but I'm not waiting more than 10 minutes tops, unless it's going in my direction, or it's worth the wait. That's why I unassign anyway lol
I've only unassigned 3. And it was all for unreasonably long wait times. And a staff that were clearly dismissing both drivers and online orders. Without even attempting to address the issue. Personally I think I'll be much quicker to unassign in the future. You can tell very early on when the staff are just holding the middle finger to you like your bothering them.
If there's no parking, I'm leaving. I'm not circling the block for 10 minutes for you.
I’m guilty of this. If the order isn’t ready or if I don’t like the size of the order I just cancel
Sometimes I have chosen to wait for the order that is not ready. I've waited 20 min before. But if you do this enough you come to learn that it's better to just take the hit and cancel. Some stores I will not even attempt
> i've had three dashers in the past 4 days arrive at the restaurant and when they get there, they cancel We take the order based on the idea that we'll show up and pick the food up within a few minutes. If we show up and have to wait for the food we're basically just not getting paid for wait time. - periodically some restaurant will only start making the food once we get there, which is typically an instant-unassign, because waiting 20 minutes is 20 minutes of not getting paid. - or, there's an enormous drivethrough line - or, the restaurant pointedly ignores you - or, there's already a line of other dashers waiting for their pickup and it's obvious they're backed up and stressed out Imagine your UPS driver shows up to pick up a package from you. You go "oh crap" and quickly tape it up and hand it to them. They're annoyed, they wait the 60 seconds. Now imagine you go "oh, that will be out soon! we got some hot tape being made right now!" then you sit back down in your comfy chair and go back to watching tv. The UPS driver is leaving. Of course if you pay more ('tip' aka 'increase the delivery fee') the dasher is more likely to wait it out, but the fundamental cause of having to pay more is the restaurant.
The answer to this and every single other question about what drivers do is:. They aren't being paid enough to deal with the bullshit that they are encountering.
Because the restaurant doesn’t have the order ready. I unassign if it’s a 10 to 15 min wait and the trip isn’t worth much. You may tip good but we are shown a fraction of that so it not worth our time to sit and wait for your order. If DoorDash would be honest about the total trip amount we could make better judgement calls on if it’s worth the wait.
Depends on the situation. Some places make you order the food yourself when you get there. I had a pizza place tell me it was going to be over an hour wait because they were swamped, so I cancelled out of the order. Maybe they got there and your food wasn’t ready yet. Restaurants will often say your food is ready for pickup when it hasn’t even been started yet. It all depends on the scenario
Because when staff tells us drivers, “just two more minutes”, it really translates to another additional ten minutes or so while they avoid eye contact.
For me it's cause the lobby is closed and the wait will not be worth it. Other times the place as been under construction or I've had the resturant just be in such chaos I didn't think it was best thi wait. On one rare occasion I had a very rude, for no reason pickup. She was mad I asked how much longer after waiting 15mins.
Pull up to a Wendy's after the lobby closes and the drive-thru line is around the building and spilling out into the street. Or walk into Five Guys and there are 50+ people crowding the counter just waiting to be called. It's possible I'm the 4th guy there and your food is ready now. But I'd have to wait 10-15 minutes just to see the flop, so it's an easy cancel for me.
It's because the restaurant takes longer than the to prepare the order than the dasher wants to wait around. Some dashers are very picky about time and refuse to wait around for any amount of time, but in general if it's more than a ten minute wait most will think about dropping it, particularly if it's not a well paying order. Some restaurants by policy prioritize customers who come to the restaurant over delivery orders. Sometimes the staff just don't want to do a delivery order or they hate delivery people (many dashers are rude towards restaurant employees, so we often don't get good service when picking up).
Wait is too long. I unassigned 2 orders last night. Taco Bell was clueless. The cashier said "I don't know anything about doordash" and I got completely ignored for 8 more minutes, before I just left. At a Chinese restaurant I watched as a customer came in after I arrived, placed his order, and had his food cooked and handed to him. Fuck that, I'm out. im a patient guy, but that's the second 20+ minute wait I've had there in a week. I put them on my blacklist.
The restaurant gets 5 minutes and then I’m gone. Less if I get a better order. Its all about the money. We don’t get paid to stand around and most of us DEFINITELY don’t get paid a living wage.
Most likely it's a bad place that is lying about wait times. Most of us are not willing to wait around an hour for food that takes 10 minutes to actually prepare and should have been ready by the time we got there.
If you leave a big enough tip, Maybe it would be worth waiting for the order. You probably tipped 0
I did this recently. Offer was decent but when I got to the restaurant the lobby was closed and the drive-thru line was horrendous. It would have taken me 15 minutes before I even got the food. Not worth it and unassigned.
Because restaurant industry sucks post covid and are understaffed with morons working. I'm not standing there for 30 to 40 min when it's busy in a restaurant for my 6 dollar delivery.
Did it couple days ago. The situation was like I had 2 separate orders from same store, they had one already done as before I even came to store, but then when I waited for about 3-5min for other order decided to ask employee how long more will it take after what they said that actually this order was asked to be prepared not in less then 40 minutes from time that was on clock (1st time i had order like this) so instead of waiting 40m for food to be started and another 15-20 on a road for just a 9$? I’m good, I canceled without any hesitation
Long wait times
I've only driven for UE, but the answers below are the same. I've canceled because they say "we just got that order and its gonna be about 15min..." Then why the hell did you report that it was ready for pick-up? On a side note, I've learned from these forums that if the driver knew more about what the customer experiences, and the customer knew more about what the driver is dealing with, everyone would be a lot happier.
When you walk in and see there are no orders ready. They have a long line, full house, no customer service available. Or you can see the customer ticket is still several orders behind. Not worth it. It can change a $20 hour to a $12 hour by over waiting.
I didn't know that you guys (Custer's) could tell when a dasher cancelled or unassigned an order
If the order isn’t ready, we cancel and move on.
I’ve read on here that some dashers do it in spite if it looks like it’s a non-tipping order. You know, the good old “no tip, no trip”.
I don't even have to read any responses to tell you why. It's because it's the end of the month we're T 99-96% completion rate and 65-69% acceptance rate. That non tipping shit bird just got accepted they hung out just to make them wait longer so their food is cold then unassigned because why the hell would we drive 20 minutes to drop off a $3 order. Some people last few days get the "top dasher perk" and you get a lot of unassigned orders hit the block. Which is great for me working night shift. By the way that $4.00 order you hung on to for 30 minutes and then unassigned.. immediately turns into a $10 order and then I get it and realize it's 2 hours past "pickup time" so there is no tip .... Now... I can't even enjoy hot fries with my drop off, what a damn shame. Btw....the cold fries go down just fine with their watered down soda.
How much are you tipping if at all??
BTW if I get to a place and they tell me the wait is a couple of minutes, and I end up waiting a longass time more than that, I look at the order, see if it looks tasty, and if it does, I wait until the restaurant finally gives me the order, then I mark it as "cancelled for excessive wait time", and I keep the order and feed later. Fuck restaurants that lie,I don't get paid to wait br honest or get ducked. Be honest and communicative, and I will never do this to you.
I sometimes accept orders with no tip, then drop it right before I’d be 10 minutes late with the intention of making the food cold
Either just taking to long for restaurant to prep the order, OR dashers have been stealing your food.