Online food delivery has thrived over the past year. Yet, that caused reasons to protest. For example, the restaurants attacked food delivery companies for their high fees. Customers and drivers complained about their tipping policies. Still, that’s the tip of the iceberg. Above all, another issue is Grubhub delivering food without the permission of the customer. 

Some people can argue that it is not a big issue if anyone picks up your In-N-Out order for you. However, when that situation became a reality, the burger chain said that illegal delivery would damage the brand’s image. The company claimed that it is hard to maintain quality control over the process in that case.

What happened with Grubhub? 

The owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant learned her restaurant is on Seamless, Grubhub, and Yelp without her permission. The owner of that restaurant is Pim Techamuanvivit. She found out her restaurant Kin Khao is on Seamless from a customer. That customer was waiting more than 45 minutes for his delivery. So, he called to check what is happening with his order. Techamuanvivit explained to the customer that they do not provide delivery or takeout at all. She was baffled and decided to announce her incident on Twitter. She summarized what happened in a series of eight tweets. Techamuanvivit explained in her tweets that her restaurant has never been on Seamless. However, out of curiosity, she decided to google the name of her restaurant.

Techamuanvivit learned from google that her restaurant is on Grubhub, which owns Seamless and Yelp, too. Even more, the platforms published wrong menus, which included items that the restaurant did not offer. In response to the incident, Techamuanvivit stated she might think about filing a lawsuit. Grubhub also made a statement about the incident. The company explained they would remove any restaurant which no longer wants to be on their platform. Grubhub honored her request.

Other Involved Customers

However, Kin Khao is not the only restaurant in San Francisco dealing with this issue. Adam Mesnick, the owner of Deli Board, a sandwich shop, also does not provide delivery. He announced that he found out his sandwich shop was on Grubhub without his consent. He also said that Techamuanvivit’s tweet underlined the essence of the problem.

Moreover, that can be an issue for customers, too. Not only do some orders take a long time to arrive, but to order a delivery from a place that does not provide this service could be disappointing. Yet, what is the point of third-party services if customers should call restaurants to ask if they deliver in the first place?