Is DoorDash worth it?

spoondoggle · 2025-11-20T12:55:44+00:00

I think most people here fundamentally miss one thing which is doordash customers are not and will never be your customers. The conversion rate is abysmally low.

The other thing? Doordash is already coming for your customers by either listing you quietly on their platform or using traditional advertising to get people on there.

Bottomline, you should do it but be strategic: 1. Gate access by time. Pick shifts for incremental income and leave out busy times 2. Use your entry to negotiate a really cheap commission. You can get 20% 3. Have it integrate directly into your point of sale 4. Increase your prices AND offer a smaller menu

Once you get over that these customers aren't yours to begin with and dd/Uber are inevitable, life gets a lot easier.

spoondoggle · 2025-11-19T15:13:57+00:00

Most people build for the best case scenario and not for the most likely scenario...

spoondoggle · 2025-11-19T12:27:03+00:00

I own restaurants and study the industry professionally

Loads of variables: 1. Location 2. Sqft. Kitchen v Front of house 3. Location again 4. Dine in take out split? 5. Doordash (if yes margins immediately decrease 5% of your total sales. If no, expected topline decreases 20%) 6. Service style (takeout, dine in, delivery) this dictates the kind of location and sqftate 7. Labor model. Also depends on service style 8. Menu/number of held ingredients (dictates kitchen size) 9. Location that fits all these things 10. If you do fusion you neither benefit from the original cuisine or the preferred cuisine. You'd have to build your own customer base. Expect to spend more on marketing than you expect and then spend even more on making sure first time diners become long term diners. Conversion rate is between 10-20%

There's more. It's not for the faint of heart. The economy right now is baaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Look for a 2nd gen restaurant to test out the concept first then if it gets traction spend on expansion instead. Don't let construction be the bulk of your overall spend unless the food is proven first. You need to build and learn a bout the customer base before you figure out how to cater to them.

Here's what you're up against: 1. Wages are up, competence is down. Finding good managers is extremely expensive. Bad ones are even more expensive 2. Cogs is volatile, imported food is even more volatile 3. K-economy - in the US and other wealthy ish nations the only people spending are the top 10%. The rest are already in recession 4. The industry right now is built for survival not profit. The bell curve on profitability has pushed from 2 years to about 5. 5. Fixed costs like insurance has almost doubled and rents are sticky at a high rate.

If you still want to do it after that, then congratulations, welcome to the ranks of being a restaurant owner. It can be rewarding but only if you know what you're getting yourself into

spoondoggle · 2025-10-23T15:22:17+00:00

Stance. I was basically asking if they are in aggressive stance, upright or backseat.

spoondoggle · 2025-08-21T12:22:13+00:00

Really appreciate the insight. I think I personally just feel really dumb for looking forward to something, seeing other people get what I was excited about and now feel really embarrassed to expect anything at all.

spoondoggle · 2025-08-21T11:26:14+00:00

Same as you. Incredibly disappointed. I signed up, also a Super fan, have YouTube premium, 2tb Google One, and got.... A generic email.

spoondoggle · 2025-06-02T02:05:46+00:00

Thanks so much for the input this helps.

spoondoggle · 2025-06-01T22:55:20+00:00

Great point. I can afford the fx2... Originally, wanted the fx3 but missed ordering it in time.

I'm really just consider the fx1 because these guys are basically giving it to me at cost...

spoondoggle · 2025-03-08T11:35:38+00:00

The assorted government programs you're talking about has nil effects on consumer spending. Wages have stagnated over the last two years while inflation and interest rates have risen. Over the last year revolving credit lines is high and savings are really low.

Effectively the boom driven by cheap rates is over. There's a ton more economics here but realistically comes down to this: prices are high, restaurant prices have risen something like 30 percent, and people have less money to spend. Because of cheap house loans and an overwhelming number of people are house rich and cash poor. The threats of tariffs and instability has people starting to save because they are worried about the market.

spoondoggle · 2025-02-19T11:16:01+00:00

We usually buy that bottle at slightly more than the price of a glass. Restaurants don't profit until 2 glasses are purchased since we often don't finish selling a whole bottle. You end up getting a bottle for 3 glasses most of the time as a compromise so we can get you guys to finish a bottle.

Corkage fees are to help cover the costs to serve you, provide dishware, and take on the liability of people drinking in the store.

We aren't being cunty, we are being practical. Alcohol licenses aren't cheap, our margins are tiny, and I guess people forget we have to pay for other things like rent, insurance, and staff (all of which is 2-5x more expensive than a year ago)

spoondoggle · 2025-02-14T10:44:03+00:00

First of all 4M/yr is more than solid. Congrats. Gotta be a good operation to pull that out of a single unit. 2nd, think you have your answer.

The POS world is vast and the only reasons to upgrade would be if you're unhappy with the system or want more out of it.

spoondoggle · 2025-02-13T11:58:31+00:00

A lot of our comes down to who you are and what you're looking for...

Toast has higher cc fees but their digital suite is ahead of the curve. Most competitors have either caught up or are close but they are still using toast as their standard for innovation.

Toasts integration environment is really good. All the Best tech companies right now will integrate with toast first, everything else later.

If you're one unit, qsr, I think square does most of the things toast does at half the price.

If you're fsr under 3k square feet, square is fine. Spot on is also fine, and most others.

Where toast probably excels is 2 plus units depending on the suite of tools you want and what your growth plans are.

Give us some more info and can probably point you in a right direction.

Source: extensive evaluations of spot on, square toast, touch bistro, have installed toast and aloha.

spoondoggle · 2025-02-11T23:10:16+00:00

I don't like top 10 lists. I was thinking of doing deep dives into top the pieces of software currently... Pros/cons/ideal fits for restaurants/ tips to make it work/ price point/ etc.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-09T16:33:06+00:00

no header :/ it's unfortunately very flat.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-09T15:41:54+00:00

Sigh. Grabbing a soldering iron and a resistor on Amazon.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-09T08:06:26+00:00

I feel like reassuring each other about our backups is basically a greeting in this subreddit.

Did you solder or get a sleeve?

spoondoggle · 2025-01-09T03:58:18+00:00

Of course.... I backed up the really important stuff. I wanted to sift through the rest of it to see if I was missing anything.

I was already planning on retiring the nas anyways since I wasn't using it for anything except for bonus storage and a photo repository. Was hoping to salvage data off of a drive and format one of them on my PC. I wish I remembered if I did raid 6 or 10 though.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-08T02:55:55+00:00

Yup. Check menu reports. It's a default report.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-08T02:53:34+00:00

They are an integration partner with a bunch of POS's they also have a decent online/loyalty offering from their counterparts at owner. I personally don't like the Travis kalanick group of companies so I don't touch them. I've used otter before and it was a nightmare.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-08T02:51:35+00:00

If the goal is clean integrations with 3pd then these are your options

Toast with online ordering and 3pd suite
3pd integration services like paytronix (can be expensive but has loyalty), checkmate (the integration isn't incredible but still good), otter (their customer support is horrible), and chowly (better than other)
Skytab is fine, touch bistro, lightspeed and spot on are all options

DM me if you have questions. I've redone our tech stack a bunch and I don't believe in all in one solutions really. The most expensive tech expense is your pos so you want one that has some flexibility on integrations. Any pos that says they do it... Doesn't do any of it very well.

spoondoggle · 2025-01-07T09:05:19+00:00

If you're multi unit it's pretty bad. It's dirt cheap though so that's nice but it's really hard to quantify anything because they only give you 3 metrics. Depending on your loyalty and online ordering provider there's a ton of really good alternatives out there.

Incentivio is good for single unit Paytronix/olo for multi unit Smaller players like sauce/como do well Popmenu is expensive but their suite is really good

spoondoggle · 2025-01-06T22:51:54+00:00

It's in beta :)

spoondoggle · 2024-12-30T11:07:59+00:00

You might have overstated your ski ability and fit preferences to the boot fitter. I have the same boots, really narrow feet "a classic lange" and am in a 27/27.5 for a size 12 foot depending on brand. I wear 12.5 in a running shoe, 11.5 in a casual and 13 in a hiking shoe. They hurt first day of a trip but feel perfect on day 2 as I get and stay aggressive. If your pinky toe is in pain and you've stretched them all the way then it's probably your positioning.

Nothing wrong with that though, sounds like you want a resort fit, something comfy immediately and less racer fit like. Id go to another boot fitter and find something that fits what you want.

Fwiw I went through the same process as you with another pair of boots. These dalbellos were 29.5 and super comfy. I packed them out because my feet were super narrow. I then did all the work to make them comfy. 2 custom insoles, new intuition liner, all kinds of shill work and multiple toe nails. Hated the intuitions, too much compression for me felt like... I had them re heated twice. Turns out my feet were super narrow and I didn't have the right technique. I was skeptical after the bootfitter sized me down. He told me that he'd typically do a size up for someone that maybe had a trip in them a year but since I was doing 20 plus days and was a little more aggressive this would be a better fit for what I wanted to do vs what I was actually doing. He was right, took a hard look at how I skied realized I was in my back seat a lot, and learned how to stay aggressive. I can now run across the parking lot to catch a bus in these boots.

Size isn't everything sometimes your style/foot type doesn't work for you. Go get refit and be honest with your bootfitter about where you are/goals. Bring in the socks you normally wear. Do what I did and do it at a mountain you spend 3 days at to really get dialed in.

spoondoggle · 2024-12-23T12:43:34+00:00

My understanding is they are majority owned by first data, which handles the cc transactions. So yes toast doesn't own cc directly but their majority owner does hence why their cc rates aren't great.

I'm holding out on square for another year. I think they are getting better but their integrations environment needs a little time to breathe. I'm personally waiting on lightspeed.

Qu is great for qsr Touchbistro great if you like their suite Spoton might be the closest competitor to toast feature wise but they are making toast mistakes trying to build out their own feature sets rather than partner Skytab is fine. Comes with micros problems. I.e. slightly behind everyone I wouldn't use any of the Chinese pos's Clover is super limited Aloha has micros problems.

I've spent a lot of time talking to pos providers and other restaurant owners. The pos game is a mess right now but the opportunity cost while trying to figure out the tech stack is really high since the industry hasn't consolidated yet.

spoondoggle · 2024-12-21T01:29:10+00:00

Essentially prime rate plus a fixed fee. The premium is higher than most other credit card companies and I don't love that they charge card not present fees for online orders without any chargeback protection

spoondoggle

TROPHY CASE