San Diego

Small Restaurants Benefit from Delivery Services

More online orders boost business

Edward Haidar could never hire someone to deliver food from his Mediterranean Lebanese restaurant, Mama's Bakery, but today there are eight companies willing to do it for him.

"Amazon yesterday we had six deliveries, Uber we had about four, Postmates three, Give Me Delivery, two," said Haidar.

The North Park restaurant owner said a few years ago about five percent of his business came from online orders but today it's up to nearly 23 percent.  

But Haidar said you don't make as much from deliveries.

"You lose a little bit of your margin," said Haidar. "But at the same time, you're getting new customers into your door and that is going to make that up.

Haidar said recently a couple came into his restaurant and told him they had ordered his food five times from a delivery service, but this was the first time they had actually walked into his restaurant.

Raul Scantov owns a small San Diego based delivery service named GiveMeDelivery.com. He said when he started five years ago there were only a few competitors, now there are nearly 15 other businesses doing the same thing.

"It's amazing how people find your business when they want food," said Scantov.

He told NBC 7, his company delivers between 50 and 100 orders per day. That number is small compared to companies like Amazon, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates and other competitors.

While Scantov and his 25 drivers pickup from 80 different San Diego restaurants, he said the most popular order is still Chinese food.

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