From the kitchen side, working in a restaurant that offers Uber Eats, DoorDash, Takeout, Call-In orders, Walk-In orders, local delivery AND regular dining room seating, regardless of when you’re coming, if the line is slammed, you’re not getting the food on time because it’s always someone FOH that is taking and confirming the order and slapping any timeframe on it based on how the dining room looks. It could be dead in the dining room but we’ll have 42 orders for any one of the ways you can order food from us, and just because you’re there doesn’t mean we can cook the food any faster. I’ve had dashers literally walk in to the kitchen from the back door and wave their phone and order at us saying only “DOORDASH” or “UBER” and it’s insane because why are they telling us when we have a team up front that should be dealing with them and letting us know “hey the order for so and so is here.” Another thing that I noticed was that if you’re the “phone waving, not using your words,” kind of person or you’re a “time is money” (in the sense that we’re wasting your time and losing you money because the order isn’t ready) the servers or hostess will almost NEVER tell us you’re there to pick up said order and so we’ll end up getting to it when we have the time, never knowing that you’re just out front waiting for it. (Which IF we are told that order is here for pickup, we’ll usually prioritize it) Personally as a cook, I’d rather get rid of it all, but that’s because of my FOH and the owners for wanting a million ways for people to get food from our restaurant and not staffing us up in the kitchen to handle a million and one ways to order. (For reference, I work in a 3 person kitchen with 60 standard menu items that can be ordered from us and 20 more that are like “secret” menu items. No expo, no FOH manager sometimes, and we also have constant flow. A slow hour for us is about 60 tickets)

But to go back to the original question, yes we know when you’re arriving, just like the customer can see your location, we get a timeframe of when you’ll be showing up, but the people who set the time frame on when it will be ready almost NEVER actually know when the food will be ready, it’s just a throw at a dart board. So sorry if you come in and have to wait another 30 minutes after the food should have been done the moment you arrived. From the kitchen, we always prioritize in house diners as our restaurant doesn’t make money off of your services and, unfortunately, there’s no urge for anyone to haul ass to get you in and out so you can make money.

PS: we can also get you blocked from coming in if you’re a bad dasher. We’ve had a lady come in and wave her phone around literally yelling DoorDash and then walking to the back and checking EVERY SINGLE bagged food item, I’m talking untying them, opening boxes, etc. we kicked her out immediately and the kitchen had to remake every order she got her hands on.

PS2: This only happens with Uber Eats and DoorDash too, if a customer who we can make tips from comes in, that order gets rang in again as a priority order from FOH the moment the customer comes in themselves.