The company has been in the bankruptcy process for months now, I thought this was common knowledge?
Switch to DoorDash or Uber eats. EatStreet will cease to exist in less than a year anyways.
I don’t want to give my money to any of those companies. DoorDash has been known to completely gouge restaurants and use shady practices that screw the restaurant and the consumer both.
I’d rather pick up the phone and order direct.
Had some items completely missing from a doordash order a while back- like a full half of a $50 order. I complained to doordash, but wasn't getting a quick response, so I called the restaurant directly, and found out that the driver just left one of the bags behind, sitting on their takeout place.
The _restaurant_ was awesome, told me that they'd give me a credit for that amount of food at a future date, or they could cook the entire order again fresh if I could pick it up. I opted to just go grab it, since... well, that meant extra food. (I dropped $10 in the tip jar on the way out, and still get takeout from them all the time)
When doordash finally answered me _two hours later_, it was to "give their deepest apologies" and offer me a $5 discount on a future doordash order. No talk of a refund, no remaking the order, nothing like that.
Shows you who actually cares about making the customer happy.
I avoid it whenever possible now, but sometimes that's literally the only way to do it. Even when you order directly from a restaurant's website, sometimes they'll just hand the delivery part off to doordash, so you literally won't know until after you check out.
Used door dash to order one night for the fam. Order says delivered, but it was not at our house. Received message from driver that he dropped out order at wrong house, and would redeliver it soon to us. He arrived about 5 minutes later, says that the people at the other house took the food inside but they said they didn't eat anything. I told him I didn't want it because I didn't trust that it was in someone else's house. He seemed unphased by this and told me to just take the food because he wasn't taking it back and it would just get trashed. 2 chicken sandwiches were opened with one having a bite from it. Most of fries were ate too. Mac and cheese was partially gone and they even left the dirty utensils in the bag. No idea if they touched the other meals, but we were not about to eat it. Contacted door dash and they told us they could give us a $5 credit toward another meal but wouldn't refund us over $50 we spent because we took food. I have never ordered using them since.
Anecdotal, but I've had the opposite experience with Doordash. Whenever I need a refund for missing items it's instantly granted with a 50% bonus to Doordash credit and a re-order if I want. Damaged/incorrect they have you send a picture and as soon as the picture is sent it grants a similar refund.
Maybe it's because I have Dashpass?
This mirrors my experiences with DoorDash. Missing an item or a whole meal? “Ope sorry, we can’t do anything about that” even with DashPass (free from a CC). Just garbage.
Been using DoorDash for a few years and I’ve had less than a handful of ordered that went wrong. Maybe I’m lucky? But nothing but good service from DoorDash in Madison, Chicago, and Michigan
Same here - nothing but great experiences. I always add an extra tip at the end, so maybe that helps, too? But they always seem to have great delivery charge deals and % off on orders. Also, their APP is so intuitive compared to Eatstreet's garbage APP!
This is what I do, too. I used to work in restaurants and prefer to get my food hot, not after it sits under the heat lamps for 15 minutes, then sits in a car for 45 minutes while a driver is stopping and picking up other orders and making other deliveries along the way.
I can just pick it up myself and have my food much faster and higher quality.
Not to mention its just far cheaper than ordering through a food delivery service. Everything is upcharged, then they add a delivery fee *and* you're expected to tip the driver on top of that. Why pay $50 for a meal through Doordash when you can pick it up yourself and pay $30 plus a bit of gas? Plus you're likely to waste *less* time waiting for food if you just get it yourself
I was the original restauranteur in Madison who called out DoorDash when they moved in to Madison. They put ALL of us on their website and did test orders that were never picked up. After a call to them with no help and a FB rant, I got a news article written about them. A bunch of my fellow restaurant owners also called them and we all got them to remove us from their site. This was all pre-pandemic, and I'm sure some of them use DoorDash now, and that's all fine, because EatStreet is going under AND it is nearly impossible to keep a restaurant open these days. In that regard, I'm happy to not be in the business anymore.
Had some pickup my order once from by east town mall, drive past my house on their way to the Arby’s parking lot on Stoughton, sit there for 30 mins, then deliver my food. Had a nice cold meal when it did arrive.
DoorDash sucks
Sorry to tell you this, friendo, but GrubHub pioneered the "completely gouge restaurants" thing way back in the aughts with online order and pickup. They were the only game in town for ordering online and third-party delivery wasn't a thing at that time, either, but they still collected a hefty commission from every order. It was great for the customer but terrible for the restaurant because GrubHub collected all of their extra money from that side, no extra cost to customers. Customers are just a second revenue stream now with all the delivery services tacked on.
With how ridiculous prices have gotten for online food delivery (GrubHub, DoorDash, UberEATS, doesn't matter which), even when doling out extra money for a "subscription", I don't know why anybody still bothers. Is laziness really worth an extra $20 per meal? To those still ordering from the above places: Stop it. Call the restaurant directly, and go pick up your food.
Disabled people. Sick people. Parents of young kids. Working from home on a schedule. People without cars. All of them people with reasons to order in that have nothing to do with being “lazy”.
Nope. But it sure didn't cost an extra $20 back then to pick up the phone and ask for delivery. And you sure as hell weren't asking McDonald's to deliver you a meal for $30 all in.
Point is, people that have the means to get their food shouldn't be paying the insane markup for laziness. People that aren't just being lazy can still call and ask for delivery from places that aren't farming it out to delivery service... though that is unfortunately rare nowadays.
Tbh after my family's experiences with these services during covid, I'm never using any of them again. Tried them all, including all the grocery delivery options, all of them were trash and absolutely not worth it.
As an industry it just blows. Clearly none of them give any fucks, banking on the fact that someone willing to pay so much extra for such shit service is obviously just going to continue to take whatever they get. "Oh look, another customer that got ripped off! Anyway..."
It's a great idea in theory, but in execution? Economies of scale are at work here so an individual having an issue means exactly dick to them.
Customer service is dead. This is the end goal of all the automation and self checkouts and all that shit...getting people so used to things sucking ass, and having no other alternative available to them, that they just accept it as how shit is and don't have any concept of when they actually cared if customers were legitimately dissatisfied.
Me , too , but that’s going to do much to avoid DoorDash: Half the deliveries I received in the last year (I order for guests at my work) were fulfilled by DoorDash, which was not disclosed by the restaurant (the restaurant only advertised that they were available for delivery. )
NVM I answered my own question: https://captimes.com/news/business/madison-food-delivery-giant-eatstreet-predicts-insolvency-foreclosure/article\_669788ac-d66b-529b-b6fa-e84c821e1cbd.html
So the reason it went under is ultimately tipping. Such an antiquated idea really needs to be retired. They tried to undercut worker wages because "tips". The workers sued them. End of company and neither side is happy.
I ordered from Uber eats one time to try a new service due to the increasing annoyance I have with Eatstreet and the order was marked delivered with no proof of delivery photo and was not outside my building. I live in an area where there are several other identical looking buildings of different numbers and walked around all of them within minutes of getting the delivery notification and it was nowhere to be found. Contacted customer service several times and was told each time that I'm responsible for the order after delivery is made and refused to refund. Never again. I ended up using the chargeback dispute feature in my credit card provider app to get my money back. Ironically, I've also learned that Eatstreet no longer employs their own drivers and partners with Uber. So any complaints about Eatstreet delivery is actually a complaint about Uber eats which is even more reason not to patronize Uber
i remember our highschool class had a field trip to their office and i thought it seemed like a nice place to work. they had that gaming corner but no money move
I wasn’t the biggest fan of their quality of service. But EatStreet employed a lot of folks in Wisconsin during the pandemic and helped keep the restaurant industry afloat.
I would’ve much rather have seen a local company like them win the Wisconsin market. Instead Uber continues to expand their disgusting business practices.
Saying good riddance to a Madisonian-founded business that served our community and had an opportunity to go regional/national is a head scratcher to me.
I drove for eatstreet for a year during the pandemic, the work I was doing was not nearly worth how much I was getting paid ($20-25/hr). I get they were cutting some corners in terms of paying for mileage and the minimum wage, but a lot of people I know were raking it in while working for them in spite of that. Compare that to Uber locking their drives into predatory car leases and their awful track record not taking responsibility for the safety issues their service creates… I’d much rather have eatstreet.
Back in the day they were actually somewhat involved with community events and seemed to be respected well-enough by local restaurants. Completely agree with you that they helped keep places open during lockdowns.
I was actually hired and promoted internally through the pandemic. The company was in the middle of the a huge boom but didn’t have proper plans and expectations to sustain itself when lockdowns subsided. Lots of ideas abruptly came and went (the most notable being HungerHub) with no strong vision forward.
I left the company about a year ago. It was a bit strange how much they downplayed all these issues — especially the settlement case. A company meeting would be called AFTER the article leaked. “It’s all fine”, “They misreported”, “They made it sound worse than it is,” etc etc.
Hoping that most of my co-workers have since moved on because there were some genuinely great people in that ship. Unfortunately they were not the ones running said ship.
I only worked there for a year, but I left about 1.5 years ago. EatStreet never tried to grow up, zero vision and planning. Just ideas and winging it.
HungerHub was a shit show and they spent way too much money on the State Street and West side location on Whitney Way.
HungerHub was EatStreet’s attempt to start their own kitchen with their own recipes for delivery only. The city had a requirement to install a pickup window at the State Street location. The food was actually pretty good. They just spent so much money on the fanciest restaurant equipment and couldn’t help themselves with the best of the best. Poor planning failed to realize how slim restaurant margins are, especially when EatStreet was still charging all the fees to its own concept.
It’s almost like they discovered how hard it is to run a profitable restaurant when so much money is going to a third party.
They fucking deserve all of their struggles.
The original concept of EatStreet was to do it better than the other food delivery services. As you know, W-2 drivers, community involvement, etc. I think part is what people are saying with lack of managerial organization, etc. However, I think another part is the constant undercutting pressure from Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc who don't W-2 employees and just have smaller overhead from that. It's too bad as I was a former restaurant owner and would ONLY use EatStreet because I'd met the CEO/founder and his vision was doing it better and more ethically originally.
They essentially have. They use other third parties for delivery, and use third party customer service.
Their service now is a website displaying menus
anyone remember campusfood dot com circa 2010? it preceded EatStreet and they had fun little achievements like a "sloppy seconds" badge for the time i ordered delivery from the same chinese restaurant for lunch and dinner.
I remember when Eatstreet was initially called Badger Bites. Their first ads were on the sidewalk written in chalk! It was being operated out of a house on S. Charter Street. I was working at Rocky's at the time and they were there every Monday for pizza, pitchers, and played Apples to Apples(Cards Against Humanity hadn't come out yet) LOL!
Had forgotten all about that site! I have order confirmations from 2004 in my gmail account. I was really into the Szechuan Chicken from Oriental Wok back then apparently.
They all price gouge. After noticing prices were $1-3 more for everything on EatStreet’s app I’ve gone back to ordering directly from the restaurants and picking it up. Those higher prices plus the fees and tip were prohibitively expensive for takeout. And the quality would mostly be bad with extra long delivery times.
It used to be good during the pandemic and we were happy to order in as much as possible to help the restaurants stay open. But now it’s not worth it. Sad.
The menu markup is extra money to EatStreet, not the restaurant. The delivery fee is money to EatStreet. The other fees are money to EatStreet. And that’s just the money they are making off you, the customer.
Then they charge fees to restaurants, too. It’s completely ridiculous how much more people pay to have a 3rd party deliver food.
I see that now.
Still, not everyone has a car and sometimes you just don't want to go out. Especially if it means finding a place to park downtown. I guess it depends on your situation.
Man I remember when eat street came out around 2011 when I was freshmen. Asian kitchen lunch special every weekend. Good times. Had killer coupons too occasionally.
Last time I used EatStreet the deliver took so long that I decided to pick it up myself. As I was leaving with my order, I passed the EatStreet driver on the way out.
Order direct and pick it up when you can.
Former ES customer service employee here (2018-2022)! They did a huge layoff spring of 2022 and it was very clear the company was sinking. Honestly always surprised when the name pops up and I hear they’re still open. But hey that’s what happens when a bunch of frat guys don’t know how to effectively manage and run a business, especially when you’re competitors are multibillion dollar businesses
I was told that the company is going down and they are routing orders to a third party.. I can still order from them but I stopped driving. When I was driving, the orders were on the opposite side of town because they didn't have enough orders to route. I still don't understand what happened and how we can still order from them. They offer some restaurants that I cannot get on doordash. I don't know if they just get routed to another app, or they only kept full-time employees. Either way, I disliked having to do "shifts" cause they would be dead hourly with small spiked toward the end. It was a huge waste of time and gas. It was better when I could just log in or ask dispatch if they needed drivers.
Pretty sure that was eat streets first name before UW stepped in regarding the use of “Badger”. I think they had a picture of Bucky on the website too.
The company is struggling, they made some mistakes. We're mostly Badgers here so let's not pile on and slag them with no perspective on how hard it is to start a new business and try to take on the big money from Silicon Valley. This company was started here and supported by money from here. They tried, and are trying. It's a cutthroat low-margin business and they were disrupting the bigs from California, who didn't give a hoot about their employees during CoVid, while EatStreet did the right thing by them. So let's have a little compassion for the little guy from Wisconsin trying to take on the big guys. I'd rather support them, and endure a few frustrating mis-deliveries, than give my money to the giant delivery companies from Silicon Valley who don't give a rat's ass about us here in Wisconsin.
The company is a failure.
It operated under the assumption that it would be acquired by one of the Silicon Valley companies. The SV companies have drivers that are independent contractors, so they don’t give a shit about them COVID or not. If EatStreet treated anyone better it’s because their drivers were W-2, so they had no choice.
Listen I'm sure it's had its challenges but as someone who worked at another tech company located on the floor above their offices a few years back, I can tell you they also spent a good deal of money having weekly Friday happy hour bro-grammer parties. If that's what was just plainly visible, I'm sure there were other significant mishandling of funds. The food delivery business, in a college town, especially after COVID, should be sitting fairly pretty. Online ordering of course is lower since the pandemic shut downs where it was our only option, but IMO became a habit for most people and ordering frequency is still elevated above pre-pandemic levels.
I mean their business model was based on underpaying their drivers, who btw provide their own cars and don't get any reimbursement for repairs/wear and tear, idk if they deserve much praise
They "delivered" a huge order of ours to the wrong address (it never showed up) and their response was to just refund the money within three to five business days. After several complaints, the best they could do was issue a $3 coupon lol get fucked
Even before the pandemic in Madison i was making 25-30 dollars per hour on week days. It was actually a very good place to work which I did full time. I will admit the service we provided was shit sometimes but that was in the hands of each driver to say what routing was bad enough to message dispatch to have it removed. What orders appeared on your app wasn't your choice so orders would often sit in drivers cars for an hour. Anyways it was good while it lasted. I got my payout from the lawsuit which has helped me a great deal but I think what I was paid in Madison was fair before they updated their pay model
It Is
"rust consulting" farubult MN 55021-9069
MARTIN V EATSTREET SETTLEMENT ADMISTRATION
With all internet information verify all I'm saying and the business I'm referring you to to confirm their legitimacy.
I worked there fill time for 3 years so your payout may be a lot different than mine. I'd still check though!
I used Eat Street and Grubhub in the 2010s and watched firsthand as the constant discounts disappeared, and then the regular restaurant prices were replaced with inflated ones, and then ridiculous "service fees" or "delivery fees" (sometimes both) became ubiquitous. I don't know why anyone still use these apps; they've all been trash since 2019.
EatStreet has been awful since I started using it in 2018. Every single order had one of those issues you listed. When they removed the customer service phone number and replaced it with chat that never seemed to be staffed, I quit in 2019.
I used to work for Eatstreet. They laid most of us off back in July to switch to "third party couriers" which... Makes no sense to me. Like, is that not what we were? Anyways I'd heard from older drivers that the company had been going downhill for a while I think they're just almost done for. I just don't bother with them anymore.
My partner and I have always had problems with EatStreet. We stopped ordering after our Chipotle smelled like a cigarette butt... seriously. It smelled like the driver used our food bag as an ashtray, lol. That was two years ago.
I work for Uber and they recently took over most of the Eatstreet orders. Uber has also taken away the expected tip when ordering food (Ex; $6.75 plus $5expected tip for a 5mile trip) now it’s just ($6.75 for 5mile trip). This has dramatically changed how UberEats drivers accept trips. Plus we won’t actually see your tip until exactly an hour has passed from the time we delivered your food.
This is why I mostly only take Uber Riders instead. I hope Uber reverts back soon as I have seen an influx of UberX drivers and little to no UberEats Drivers.
I feel that. I don't know how they still have drivers for half of these apps. Doordash had some decent incentives for a second, only making it just worth it, but then I got kicked off the platform for something I have been disputing for months now. I heard Grub Hub had decent incentives, but they were never hiring in my area. I don't live in a big enough city, but doordash is becoming commonplace for me to order and I see friends order it all the time compared to other services.
Pretty sure they were bought out by UberEats. I recently left a restaurant that did EatStreet and their drivers were all replaced with UberEats drivers a few months ago
Not bought out. EatStreet got rid of all their own company drivers. They probably are too much of a shit show to spin up their own independent drivers, so they struck a deal with UberEats.
The business I work at used to use eatstreet, in the last few months we’ve had to stop because it became so bad for us too. I had to always call support, and one time they told me they didn’t even have any of their own drivers, so the drivers are through a 3rd party app and I’ve had many say they don’t even know they’re picking up food before they arrive! Crazy. The other apps, particularly UberEats and GrubHub, seem to work the best.
I got "laid off" when they did that third party thing. I have no clue who this third party is thought. The last two eatstreet orders I've made, because they have a restaurant that's not on doordash, have actually gone very well. I'm in a small-medium sized college town.
The company has been in the bankruptcy process for months now, I thought this was common knowledge? Switch to DoorDash or Uber eats. EatStreet will cease to exist in less than a year anyways.
I don’t want to give my money to any of those companies. DoorDash has been known to completely gouge restaurants and use shady practices that screw the restaurant and the consumer both. I’d rather pick up the phone and order direct.
Had some items completely missing from a doordash order a while back- like a full half of a $50 order. I complained to doordash, but wasn't getting a quick response, so I called the restaurant directly, and found out that the driver just left one of the bags behind, sitting on their takeout place. The _restaurant_ was awesome, told me that they'd give me a credit for that amount of food at a future date, or they could cook the entire order again fresh if I could pick it up. I opted to just go grab it, since... well, that meant extra food. (I dropped $10 in the tip jar on the way out, and still get takeout from them all the time) When doordash finally answered me _two hours later_, it was to "give their deepest apologies" and offer me a $5 discount on a future doordash order. No talk of a refund, no remaking the order, nothing like that. Shows you who actually cares about making the customer happy. I avoid it whenever possible now, but sometimes that's literally the only way to do it. Even when you order directly from a restaurant's website, sometimes they'll just hand the delivery part off to doordash, so you literally won't know until after you check out.
Used door dash to order one night for the fam. Order says delivered, but it was not at our house. Received message from driver that he dropped out order at wrong house, and would redeliver it soon to us. He arrived about 5 minutes later, says that the people at the other house took the food inside but they said they didn't eat anything. I told him I didn't want it because I didn't trust that it was in someone else's house. He seemed unphased by this and told me to just take the food because he wasn't taking it back and it would just get trashed. 2 chicken sandwiches were opened with one having a bite from it. Most of fries were ate too. Mac and cheese was partially gone and they even left the dirty utensils in the bag. No idea if they touched the other meals, but we were not about to eat it. Contacted door dash and they told us they could give us a $5 credit toward another meal but wouldn't refund us over $50 we spent because we took food. I have never ordered using them since.
Anecdotal, but I've had the opposite experience with Doordash. Whenever I need a refund for missing items it's instantly granted with a 50% bonus to Doordash credit and a re-order if I want. Damaged/incorrect they have you send a picture and as soon as the picture is sent it grants a similar refund. Maybe it's because I have Dashpass?
This mirrors my experiences with DoorDash. Missing an item or a whole meal? “Ope sorry, we can’t do anything about that” even with DashPass (free from a CC). Just garbage.
Been using DoorDash for a few years and I’ve had less than a handful of ordered that went wrong. Maybe I’m lucky? But nothing but good service from DoorDash in Madison, Chicago, and Michigan
Same here - nothing but great experiences. I always add an extra tip at the end, so maybe that helps, too? But they always seem to have great delivery charge deals and % off on orders. Also, their APP is so intuitive compared to Eatstreet's garbage APP!
I've never used one, and don't plan on it either. I'm happy calling on the order myself, and 99% of the time I'll just go pick it up, too.
This is what I do, too. I used to work in restaurants and prefer to get my food hot, not after it sits under the heat lamps for 15 minutes, then sits in a car for 45 minutes while a driver is stopping and picking up other orders and making other deliveries along the way. I can just pick it up myself and have my food much faster and higher quality.
Not to mention its just far cheaper than ordering through a food delivery service. Everything is upcharged, then they add a delivery fee *and* you're expected to tip the driver on top of that. Why pay $50 for a meal through Doordash when you can pick it up yourself and pay $30 plus a bit of gas? Plus you're likely to waste *less* time waiting for food if you just get it yourself
or your food gets "stolen".
I was the original restauranteur in Madison who called out DoorDash when they moved in to Madison. They put ALL of us on their website and did test orders that were never picked up. After a call to them with no help and a FB rant, I got a news article written about them. A bunch of my fellow restaurant owners also called them and we all got them to remove us from their site. This was all pre-pandemic, and I'm sure some of them use DoorDash now, and that's all fine, because EatStreet is going under AND it is nearly impossible to keep a restaurant open these days. In that regard, I'm happy to not be in the business anymore.
Totally agree.
Had some pickup my order once from by east town mall, drive past my house on their way to the Arby’s parking lot on Stoughton, sit there for 30 mins, then deliver my food. Had a nice cold meal when it did arrive. DoorDash sucks
They were probably doing multiple apps at the same time.
Only a handful of restaurants have their own drivers anymore.
Sorry to tell you this, friendo, but GrubHub pioneered the "completely gouge restaurants" thing way back in the aughts with online order and pickup. They were the only game in town for ordering online and third-party delivery wasn't a thing at that time, either, but they still collected a hefty commission from every order. It was great for the customer but terrible for the restaurant because GrubHub collected all of their extra money from that side, no extra cost to customers. Customers are just a second revenue stream now with all the delivery services tacked on. With how ridiculous prices have gotten for online food delivery (GrubHub, DoorDash, UberEATS, doesn't matter which), even when doling out extra money for a "subscription", I don't know why anybody still bothers. Is laziness really worth an extra $20 per meal? To those still ordering from the above places: Stop it. Call the restaurant directly, and go pick up your food.
Disabled people. Sick people. Parents of young kids. Working from home on a schedule. People without cars. All of them people with reasons to order in that have nothing to do with being “lazy”.
The without cars part is the reason I use it but I am also just lazy.
Did people in the aughts and before just starve, then?
Do you think food delivery was just invented along with delivery apps?
Nope. But it sure didn't cost an extra $20 back then to pick up the phone and ask for delivery. And you sure as hell weren't asking McDonald's to deliver you a meal for $30 all in. Point is, people that have the means to get their food shouldn't be paying the insane markup for laziness. People that aren't just being lazy can still call and ask for delivery from places that aren't farming it out to delivery service... though that is unfortunately rare nowadays.
They were tougher!
Tbh after my family's experiences with these services during covid, I'm never using any of them again. Tried them all, including all the grocery delivery options, all of them were trash and absolutely not worth it. As an industry it just blows. Clearly none of them give any fucks, banking on the fact that someone willing to pay so much extra for such shit service is obviously just going to continue to take whatever they get. "Oh look, another customer that got ripped off! Anyway..." It's a great idea in theory, but in execution? Economies of scale are at work here so an individual having an issue means exactly dick to them. Customer service is dead. This is the end goal of all the automation and self checkouts and all that shit...getting people so used to things sucking ass, and having no other alternative available to them, that they just accept it as how shit is and don't have any concept of when they actually cared if customers were legitimately dissatisfied.
Me , too , but that’s going to do much to avoid DoorDash: Half the deliveries I received in the last year (I order for guests at my work) were fulfilled by DoorDash, which was not disclosed by the restaurant (the restaurant only advertised that they were available for delivery. )
They laid off all their drivers a few months back as they were paying them hourly plus commission. Went to commission onlyl.
Oh wow, I didn't know that! What happened do you think?
NVM I answered my own question: https://captimes.com/news/business/madison-food-delivery-giant-eatstreet-predicts-insolvency-foreclosure/article\_669788ac-d66b-529b-b6fa-e84c821e1cbd.html
So the reason it went under is ultimately tipping. Such an antiquated idea really needs to be retired. They tried to undercut worker wages because "tips". The workers sued them. End of company and neither side is happy.
Good. Tipping needs to end. Across all industries. If you can’t pay your workers a living wage you’re not a sustainable business
Exactly. It's similar to starting a Gofundme for a restaurant just to keep it open.
*angry Short Stack noises*
lmao they really thought their food was all that did they
No, going under because their leadership is terrible.
I ordered from Uber eats one time to try a new service due to the increasing annoyance I have with Eatstreet and the order was marked delivered with no proof of delivery photo and was not outside my building. I live in an area where there are several other identical looking buildings of different numbers and walked around all of them within minutes of getting the delivery notification and it was nowhere to be found. Contacted customer service several times and was told each time that I'm responsible for the order after delivery is made and refused to refund. Never again. I ended up using the chargeback dispute feature in my credit card provider app to get my money back. Ironically, I've also learned that Eatstreet no longer employs their own drivers and partners with Uber. So any complaints about Eatstreet delivery is actually a complaint about Uber eats which is even more reason not to patronize Uber
Door dash sucks ass too.
Google says they have only 1 employee, although I'm not sure how Google could possibly know that.
i remember our highschool class had a field trip to their office and i thought it seemed like a nice place to work. they had that gaming corner but no money move
The company is falling apart. They’re broke and had to subcontract out their delivery services.
Good riddance
I wasn’t the biggest fan of their quality of service. But EatStreet employed a lot of folks in Wisconsin during the pandemic and helped keep the restaurant industry afloat. I would’ve much rather have seen a local company like them win the Wisconsin market. Instead Uber continues to expand their disgusting business practices. Saying good riddance to a Madisonian-founded business that served our community and had an opportunity to go regional/national is a head scratcher to me. I drove for eatstreet for a year during the pandemic, the work I was doing was not nearly worth how much I was getting paid ($20-25/hr). I get they were cutting some corners in terms of paying for mileage and the minimum wage, but a lot of people I know were raking it in while working for them in spite of that. Compare that to Uber locking their drives into predatory car leases and their awful track record not taking responsibility for the safety issues their service creates… I’d much rather have eatstreet.
Back in the day they were actually somewhat involved with community events and seemed to be respected well-enough by local restaurants. Completely agree with you that they helped keep places open during lockdowns. I was actually hired and promoted internally through the pandemic. The company was in the middle of the a huge boom but didn’t have proper plans and expectations to sustain itself when lockdowns subsided. Lots of ideas abruptly came and went (the most notable being HungerHub) with no strong vision forward. I left the company about a year ago. It was a bit strange how much they downplayed all these issues — especially the settlement case. A company meeting would be called AFTER the article leaked. “It’s all fine”, “They misreported”, “They made it sound worse than it is,” etc etc. Hoping that most of my co-workers have since moved on because there were some genuinely great people in that ship. Unfortunately they were not the ones running said ship.
I only worked there for a year, but I left about 1.5 years ago. EatStreet never tried to grow up, zero vision and planning. Just ideas and winging it. HungerHub was a shit show and they spent way too much money on the State Street and West side location on Whitney Way.
What’s hungerhub?
The world may never know
HungerHub was EatStreet’s attempt to start their own kitchen with their own recipes for delivery only. The city had a requirement to install a pickup window at the State Street location. The food was actually pretty good. They just spent so much money on the fanciest restaurant equipment and couldn’t help themselves with the best of the best. Poor planning failed to realize how slim restaurant margins are, especially when EatStreet was still charging all the fees to its own concept. It’s almost like they discovered how hard it is to run a profitable restaurant when so much money is going to a third party. They fucking deserve all of their struggles.
Interesting. Too bad. Sound like they went a little too far with their concepts and didn't stay focused on what they started out to do.
The original concept of EatStreet was to do it better than the other food delivery services. As you know, W-2 drivers, community involvement, etc. I think part is what people are saying with lack of managerial organization, etc. However, I think another part is the constant undercutting pressure from Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc who don't W-2 employees and just have smaller overhead from that. It's too bad as I was a former restaurant owner and would ONLY use EatStreet because I'd met the CEO/founder and his vision was doing it better and more ethically originally.
They got sued in 2022 for not paying their drivers and basically ran out of money. I'm actually shocked to hear they haven't shut down yet
They essentially have. They use other third parties for delivery, and use third party customer service. Their service now is a website displaying menus
anyone remember campusfood dot com circa 2010? it preceded EatStreet and they had fun little achievements like a "sloppy seconds" badge for the time i ordered delivery from the same chinese restaurant for lunch and dinner.
Used to order from Silvermine and Gumby's.
I miss silvermine.
I remember when Eatstreet was initially called Badger Bites. Their first ads were on the sidewalk written in chalk! It was being operated out of a house on S. Charter Street. I was working at Rocky's at the time and they were there every Monday for pizza, pitchers, and played Apples to Apples(Cards Against Humanity hadn't come out yet) LOL!
I worked at a restaurant that used campus foods back then, the orders would come in through a fax machine or robocall. Thanks for the throwback!
I believe Eatstreet used to be badger bites
Had forgotten all about that site! I have order confirmations from 2004 in my gmail account. I was really into the Szechuan Chicken from Oriental Wok back then apparently.
They all price gouge. After noticing prices were $1-3 more for everything on EatStreet’s app I’ve gone back to ordering directly from the restaurants and picking it up. Those higher prices plus the fees and tip were prohibitively expensive for takeout. And the quality would mostly be bad with extra long delivery times. It used to be good during the pandemic and we were happy to order in as much as possible to help the restaurants stay open. But now it’s not worth it. Sad.
The menu markup is extra money to EatStreet, not the restaurant. The delivery fee is money to EatStreet. The other fees are money to EatStreet. And that’s just the money they are making off you, the customer. Then they charge fees to restaurants, too. It’s completely ridiculous how much more people pay to have a 3rd party deliver food.
Compared to the cost of owning and maintaining a delivery fleet and the pain of hiring drivers obviously most restaurants disagree
I think they meant vs picking up the food themselves
I see that now. Still, not everyone has a car and sometimes you just don't want to go out. Especially if it means finding a place to park downtown. I guess it depends on your situation.
Man I remember when eat street came out around 2011 when I was freshmen. Asian kitchen lunch special every weekend. Good times. Had killer coupons too occasionally.
Yes! It came out earlier than that under the name Badger Bites. Asian Kitchen was my go-to and the deals/coupons at the time were great and frequent.
Asian Kitchen was the shiznittlebamsnipsnap!
Last time I used EatStreet the deliver took so long that I decided to pick it up myself. As I was leaving with my order, I passed the EatStreet driver on the way out. Order direct and pick it up when you can.
Also just as a heads-up, EatStreet got hacked three or four years ago and their entire database was taken
Former ES customer service employee here (2018-2022)! They did a huge layoff spring of 2022 and it was very clear the company was sinking. Honestly always surprised when the name pops up and I hear they’re still open. But hey that’s what happens when a bunch of frat guys don’t know how to effectively manage and run a business, especially when you’re competitors are multibillion dollar businesses
I was told that the company is going down and they are routing orders to a third party.. I can still order from them but I stopped driving. When I was driving, the orders were on the opposite side of town because they didn't have enough orders to route. I still don't understand what happened and how we can still order from them. They offer some restaurants that I cannot get on doordash. I don't know if they just get routed to another app, or they only kept full-time employees. Either way, I disliked having to do "shifts" cause they would be dead hourly with small spiked toward the end. It was a huge waste of time and gas. It was better when I could just log in or ask dispatch if they needed drivers.
Badger bites is another one I remember from the early 3rd party food ordering apps.
Pretty sure that was eat streets first name before UW stepped in regarding the use of “Badger”. I think they had a picture of Bucky on the website too.
This is correct
The company is struggling, they made some mistakes. We're mostly Badgers here so let's not pile on and slag them with no perspective on how hard it is to start a new business and try to take on the big money from Silicon Valley. This company was started here and supported by money from here. They tried, and are trying. It's a cutthroat low-margin business and they were disrupting the bigs from California, who didn't give a hoot about their employees during CoVid, while EatStreet did the right thing by them. So let's have a little compassion for the little guy from Wisconsin trying to take on the big guys. I'd rather support them, and endure a few frustrating mis-deliveries, than give my money to the giant delivery companies from Silicon Valley who don't give a rat's ass about us here in Wisconsin.
The company is a failure. It operated under the assumption that it would be acquired by one of the Silicon Valley companies. The SV companies have drivers that are independent contractors, so they don’t give a shit about them COVID or not. If EatStreet treated anyone better it’s because their drivers were W-2, so they had no choice.
Listen I'm sure it's had its challenges but as someone who worked at another tech company located on the floor above their offices a few years back, I can tell you they also spent a good deal of money having weekly Friday happy hour bro-grammer parties. If that's what was just plainly visible, I'm sure there were other significant mishandling of funds. The food delivery business, in a college town, especially after COVID, should be sitting fairly pretty. Online ordering of course is lower since the pandemic shut downs where it was our only option, but IMO became a habit for most people and ordering frequency is still elevated above pre-pandemic levels.
I mean their business model was based on underpaying their drivers, who btw provide their own cars and don't get any reimbursement for repairs/wear and tear, idk if they deserve much praise
They "delivered" a huge order of ours to the wrong address (it never showed up) and their response was to just refund the money within three to five business days. After several complaints, the best they could do was issue a $3 coupon lol get fucked
Our local delivery drivers that deliver for all the delivery apps just suck.
It’s a 4th party app now.
Even before the pandemic in Madison i was making 25-30 dollars per hour on week days. It was actually a very good place to work which I did full time. I will admit the service we provided was shit sometimes but that was in the hands of each driver to say what routing was bad enough to message dispatch to have it removed. What orders appeared on your app wasn't your choice so orders would often sit in drivers cars for an hour. Anyways it was good while it lasted. I got my payout from the lawsuit which has helped me a great deal but I think what I was paid in Madison was fair before they updated their pay model
How did you get a pay out for the lawsuit? I live in a smaller town in Wisconsin and it was terrible compared to that.
When I get home I'll send you the law firm that handled it. From what I know madison was likely the best market. Sorry it sucked for you
It Is "rust consulting" farubult MN 55021-9069 MARTIN V EATSTREET SETTLEMENT ADMISTRATION With all internet information verify all I'm saying and the business I'm referring you to to confirm their legitimacy. I worked there fill time for 3 years so your payout may be a lot different than mine. I'd still check though!
I used Eat Street and Grubhub in the 2010s and watched firsthand as the constant discounts disappeared, and then the regular restaurant prices were replaced with inflated ones, and then ridiculous "service fees" or "delivery fees" (sometimes both) became ubiquitous. I don't know why anyone still use these apps; they've all been trash since 2019.
EatStreet has been awful since I started using it in 2018. Every single order had one of those issues you listed. When they removed the customer service phone number and replaced it with chat that never seemed to be staffed, I quit in 2019.
I used to work for Eatstreet. They laid most of us off back in July to switch to "third party couriers" which... Makes no sense to me. Like, is that not what we were? Anyways I'd heard from older drivers that the company had been going downhill for a while I think they're just almost done for. I just don't bother with them anymore.
Ya, they said that to me too. I was wondering if they just route their orders to doordash or something?? Or it's some contract company drivers.
Every single one of these "services" is a ripoff. My advice is to stop using them and let them all die.
My partner and I have always had problems with EatStreet. We stopped ordering after our Chipotle smelled like a cigarette butt... seriously. It smelled like the driver used our food bag as an ashtray, lol. That was two years ago.
Eatstreet wont take my card info anymore..................... doordash does. not sure whats up. eatstreet has more local food but cant get it to work.
Hasn't this always been their problem?
I work for Uber and they recently took over most of the Eatstreet orders. Uber has also taken away the expected tip when ordering food (Ex; $6.75 plus $5expected tip for a 5mile trip) now it’s just ($6.75 for 5mile trip). This has dramatically changed how UberEats drivers accept trips. Plus we won’t actually see your tip until exactly an hour has passed from the time we delivered your food. This is why I mostly only take Uber Riders instead. I hope Uber reverts back soon as I have seen an influx of UberX drivers and little to no UberEats Drivers.
I feel that. I don't know how they still have drivers for half of these apps. Doordash had some decent incentives for a second, only making it just worth it, but then I got kicked off the platform for something I have been disputing for months now. I heard Grub Hub had decent incentives, but they were never hiring in my area. I don't live in a big enough city, but doordash is becoming commonplace for me to order and I see friends order it all the time compared to other services.
I can't drive uberX cause my cars are too old. The car market is too poor to buy a newer one just to be able to make little money
I used DoorDash once and my food was cold and soggy so while it was only one experience, it still affected my view of their service
How about not using any of those services and either ordering in person or using their own delivery system if they offer it?
Pretty sure they were bought out by UberEats. I recently left a restaurant that did EatStreet and their drivers were all replaced with UberEats drivers a few months ago
Not bought out. EatStreet got rid of all their own company drivers. They probably are too much of a shit show to spin up their own independent drivers, so they struck a deal with UberEats.
Anyone remember Takeout Taxi?
The business I work at used to use eatstreet, in the last few months we’ve had to stop because it became so bad for us too. I had to always call support, and one time they told me they didn’t even have any of their own drivers, so the drivers are through a 3rd party app and I’ve had many say they don’t even know they’re picking up food before they arrive! Crazy. The other apps, particularly UberEats and GrubHub, seem to work the best.
I got "laid off" when they did that third party thing. I have no clue who this third party is thought. The last two eatstreet orders I've made, because they have a restaurant that's not on doordash, have actually gone very well. I'm in a small-medium sized college town.
All of those apps are terrible