Food delivery services may be convenient, especially with an app, but one bakery in downtown Syracuse recently went toe-to-toe with GrubHub to get its name removed from the service.
Rebecca Riley owns Peace, Love, and Cupcakes. She says her bakery was recently added without her permission. She found out about it when a delivery driver showed up to pick up an order.
She says it took four or five phone calls, being transferred, and sending an email before finally being able to get her restaurant removed.
“I find it highly disturbing. I don’t think it’s okay for anyone to take it upon themselves to make revenue off of a restaurant that didn’t choose to be in that position,” said Riley. “I think the part about them saying they make it easy to request to be taken off, that’s a load of crap because that wasn’t easy, and I have actually heard from other restaurants that they went through what I just went through, were removed, and then found out they were placed on there again.”
For GrubHub’s part, here’s what they told us:
“GrubHub places restaurants on our platform to offer diners variety and to generate more orders for the restaurants. Restaurant owners can request removal by reaching out to us at restaurants@grubhub.com, and Peace, Love, and Cupcakes has been removed from our marketplace”
Riley says the best way to support a local business, even if you do see them on delivery apps, is to call or message them and see what the best way to order is. She says a lot of the time it can save both you and the restaurant money to order over the phone.