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Businesses The Internet

Online Takeout Delivery is Back 295

Posted by timothy from the those-halcyon-days dept.
prostoalex writes "It's like watching e-Dreams and re-living the Kozmo.com experience, only this time it's for real, the New York Times says. SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food. All is done via their Web site so no need to look for that takeout menu: "SeamlessWeb charges restaurants a commission of 5 percent to 15 percent, while the business pays a 2.5 percent fee for each transaction. The process for consumers will work much the same, except they will be charged no service fee.""
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Online Takeout Delivery is Back More

Online Takeout Delivery is Back

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  • Meh! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Gilesx ( 525831 )
    Dominos UK (http://www.dominos.co.uk) has had a web orders facility (and interactive digital TV) for the last four years. Is this really just catching on over the pond?

    I guess the big question is, what point am I missing here?

    • Re:Meh! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ALecs ( 118703 )
      I guess the big question is, what point am I missing here?

      That it's a slow news day. :)

    • I second the "what point am I missing here?" question...campusfood.com [campusfood.com] has been around here for a number of years now. Maybe I missed something in skimming TFA.

    • Re:Meh! (Score:3, Informative)

      by hwprog ( 575295 )

      What you're missing is that these guys act as a go-between for a large number of takeout restaurants. It effectively gives you up to date access to all takeout menus for all your local restaurants from one central site.

      Frankly it's a brilliant idea.

      • Hopefully it's smarter this time (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:39PM (#12804192) Homepage Journal
        I agree that it's a brilliant idea, but the relevant question is, why will it succeed this time if it failed last time?

        The most obvious answer is that the dotcom era is over. If they're offering a reasonable offer at a reasonable price, plus the economies of scale (why should every restaurant in the area have a separate delivery system when you can even out the bursts with a large central service?), it could well work.

        As opposed to the dotcom era, when readily-available investor money and a land-rush attitude made for stupid promotions. A friend of mine bought stuff through kozmo because it was cheaper, even delivered, than buying the object in a store. Clearly they were losing money like crazy and he knew he was taking advantage of stupid investors.

        • Re:Hopefully it's smarter this time (Score:4, Insightful)

          by TrippTDF ( 513419 ) <hiland.gmail@com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @01:03PM (#12804446)
          There were a lot of good ideas that came out of the dotcom era, and I think a lot of them will see the light of day again, just not on the same level as before. People today are much more accustomed to using the internet, and there are more people on it than 5 years ago. I think now is the time to start working on some of those dot-bomb ideas... This, in part, is why Google is doing as well as it is.
        • If they get the delivery logistics right the first and manage to get started without blowing $250 million like Webvan did, I don't see how this would not work. Home delivery is an old concept, but there's always room for improvement in efficiency, and restaurants may decide it works far better to farm out their delivery service rather than try to manage it themselves.
        • The best thing about Kozmo--and its greatest weakness, businesswise--was that they sold more than just takeout food. They'd deliver a pint of Ben & Jerry's, a Razor scooter, DVDs. The problem is, they couldn't mark these things up as much as a pizza is marked up. A pizza is made out of $1 worth of ingredients and sold for $15. To make a pint of Ben & Jerry's as profitable, they'd have to charge $20 for it. Who's going to pay that?
        • This time around a few things are different...
          • unless you live under a rock with no internet service, you are used to buying things on line so the market's potential size is bigger and more realistically estimated.
          • Gas costs $2.10/gal so a little markup in the cost is worth it to the consumer who otherwise not only takes the time to drive to the restaurant but buys some gas to do so.
          • tips? no waiters involved but a driver is. Tips are up to 18% [e.g. Legal Seafoods in Boston adds that gratuity to the bil
        • As the owner of SnapFood and having been quoted in the original article, I would like to address why SnapFood is succeeding where other companies have tried and failed.

          1. The landscape of the online market is completely different now vs. five years ago when other major efforts were made.

          2. Our team brings restaurant experience to the online space, where none existed before -- previous entrants to the online market did not have the proper backgrounds.

          3. Our teams brings hands-on, technology and e-commerce

      • Re:Meh! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 )
        A friend of mine drove for takeout taxi and I used to order from campusfoods all the time.

        I don't see why this service is innovative. Maybe it does something better than those two companies, but I doubt it's a revolutionary improvement. sixdegrees -> friendster
        • I think what they are doing better than those two companies is buying ad space on the New York Times and /..

      • Re:Meh! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by BlewScreen ( 159261 )
        takeout menus for all your local restaurants from one central site

        Right - just like these guys [diningin.com] have been doing for years as well...

        Actually 18 years - many of the early ones were via a mailing that contained all of the resturant menus, but I've been using their web order system for at least four years.

    • Re:Meh! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SABME ( 524360 )
      >I guess the big question is, what point am I missing here? The point: Dominos (or any big chain pizzeria) makes lousy pizza, regardless of how easy it is to order.

    • Re:Meh! (Score:5, Funny)

      by lostwanderer147 ( 829316 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @01:07PM (#12804481) Journal
      I once ordered a ninja burger [ninjaburger.com], but it never came, so I guess that the delivery person committed seppuku.

    • Re:Meh! (Score:2, Informative)

      by jwjr ( 56765 )
      No, it's not just catching on. In New York City, for example, thousands of restaurants of all kinds have web sites as well as taking orders for delivery over the phone. That has been the norm for several years now. I doubt there is any other city that offers as much diverse food delivery at all hours as New York. Pizza, barbeque, chinese, mexican, sushi, thai, indian, italian, vegetarian/vegan, turkish, burgers, etc. can be ordered for delivery to your door in many neighborhoods. It's my sense that well

  • Looking forward to this: (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:28PM (#12804056)
    1. Drive to nearby Domino's that offers free WiFi
    2. Order Domino's pizza online at their web site.
    3. Drive home and wait for pizza.

  • Nice ad for this company, but old news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pctainto ( 325762 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:29PM (#12804068) Homepage
    I've been using CampusFood.com to make my takeout (or pick-up) deliveries for quite some time. Great service. I don't think that online delivery services ever left the internet -- this story is just a shameless plug for some new startup.

  • food.com had it too (Score:5, Informative)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:29PM (#12804073) Homepage Journal
    before the Food Network took over (bought?) the domain. Also, Waiters on Wheels. They fill a niche market.

    My experience has been that ordering from a restaraunt that doesn't normally handle takeout will be a hit or miss affair as to whether or not you will be satisfied with what gets delivered.

  • "Back"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by smileyy ( 11535 ) <smileyy@gmail.com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:30PM (#12804075)
    I've been using http://www.takeouttaxi.com/ [takeouttaxi.com] for quite a while now.

    • Me too - they've been active in Houston as a phone-based service for at least a decade if not more. I'm not sure at what point they started doing the web-based thing, but it was at least six months ago for the Houston website. I use it all the time. Prior to that I was using a local Houston one called Takenabreak.com at least as long ago as 1.5 years back - but they recently closed down their food delivery service altogether, guess they weren't making enough profit.
    • I've been using http://www.diningin.com/ [diningin.com] myself. Dunno why this is such a hot idea now?

  • And this is news? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Astin ( 177479 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:30PM (#12804079)
    Is this different than Restaurants on the Go [restaurantsonthego.com] here in Toronto? I can order online (or via the phone) from a rather large list of restaurants and have it delivered to my door. Sure, there's a delivery fee, but one might expect that.

  • The point ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrShaggy ( 683273 ) <chris.andersonNO@SPAMhush.com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:30PM (#12804086) Journal
    I think the point is that you can orderf rom anywhere on one site. For no extra fee!

  • CAD (Score:5, Funny)

    by XFilesFMDS1013 ( 830724 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:31PM (#12804101)
    There's a CAD comic for every story...

    http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date= 2005-02-21 [ctrlaltdel-online.com]

  • Slashdot gets fooled again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by turambar386 ( 254373 ) <turambar386.routergod@com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:31PM (#12804103) Homepage
    Another blatent advertisement gets posted as a story. Yawn.

    • Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MisanthropicProgram ( 763655 )
      And now I want to look up that article from last week in the Wall Street Journal about how the Internet Bubble is starting all over again.

      Sorry, but there are some things that I need to see in person. In many cases, there's absolutely no substitute for personal experience in choosing a product. It varies between people, but mine are: foods, powertools, movies, most books, and just about everythings else. I like to see things in person. Having ship things back because of poor quality is more trouble than ju

      • I wouldn't go back to the old days when you had to push a trolley around a supermarket and carry 15 heavy bags home.. Nooooo way.

        Every month I get everything I need right to my door. Since I get most of the same things each month it only takes a few minutes the edit the previous months' order and make any changes.

        I still like to wander around meatspace occasionally looking at items worth buying, but since I can get most stuff cheaper on the internet I generally don't bother.
    • Slashdot, like any whore, gets looser and looser about whoring themselves as time goes on.

  • I thought Kozmo was starting to actually make money in some cities. About time some company stepped in to fill the void.
    • I miss Kozmo. It was great when I was stuck in my freshman dorm with no car and no nearby retail establishments of any quality.
    • i loved kozmo and was surprised thay couldn't be profitable enough to stay in business. but this is nothing like kozmo. this is just a place to order delivery from a bunch of restaurants. kozmo didn't even offer that service (at least not in boston where i used it). kozmo had video rental and sold all kinds of stuff- snacks (like anything you can get in white hen- even ben & jerry's!), cd's, maybe even books- then they would deliver it all within an hour- it was awesome. i would definitely still use koz
  • Many of the local supermarkets have online ordering and delivery for about $10 extra. Webvan burned through tens of millions trying to build warehouse delivery centers before it failed.
  • I understand that this is a paid slashvertisement, but what exactly is new about this? Did the idea of online ordering and delivery ever leave? I have been able to place online orders from a number of restaurants for years.

    Are we going to be shocked by the amazing new discovery of a restaurant with salt and pepper on every table next?

  • Kozmo delivered movies and convenience store products (and even electronics). Stuff you really couldn't have delivered easily from anyone else. It wasn't just "but it's on the Internet!" but rather a whole new thing.

    This is just food delivery where you order online -- just like DiningIn [diningin.com] has been doing for years (Boston, Chicago, Philly, and Dallas). And news-flash: there's thousands of restaurants that aready do delivery, so adding "on the Internet!" isn't all that exciting.

  • SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food.

    What about those of us in flyover country, you insensitive clod? (j/k)

    In all seriousness, I think this is a great idea, but it's hardly original. It does need to catch on, tho. When I was living in San Diego, I was able to order pizzas from Dominos entirely online, pay for them with my card, and have them delivered fas

  • Whatever - not Kozmo at all (Score:5, Insightful)

    by porcupine8 ( 816071 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:32PM (#12804122) Journal
    Campusfood.com already offers this kind of service, in a lot more places than just big cities.

    Kozmo offered video rentals online, with free delivery - as well as things like snack foods, CDs, convenience items, video games, etc. It was impulse-buying to the max. I was so sad to see Kozmo die. This is nothing like Kozmo, it's like all the other online ordering systems for restaraunts out there.

    Meh. Call me when Kozmo REALLY comes back.

  • Lessons From Big Mistakes in the past.. remember WebVan.. anyway wishing them all the very best!
    • And the lesson is quite simple: online delivery only works in areas with a high density of people with huge disposable incomes. Covering rural or poor areas is a sure way to run at a loss. Cherry-pick the high profit areas first, and forget about service to the rest of the country!

  • Finally, they figure out the Dominoes model! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by birge ( 866103 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:34PM (#12804135) Homepage
    It took them long enough, but they finally realized that if you hide the cost of the second business (delivery) in the prices from the first business (food) people can be fooled into thinking they are getting free delivery.

    Or, another way of looking at this is that urban prices are so inflated that one can piggyback entire businesses inside the margins. I suppose when a sandwich costs $15, you've got a lot of room to play with your delivery model.

  • DrDelivery.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:35PM (#12804147) Homepage
    In my area (Arlington, VA), we have DrDelivery.com [drdelivery.com]. You can get all sorts of food and other errands run for you. Its fairly popular.

  • This isn't hard to do. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:35PM (#12804150) Homepage Journal
    As long as a company stays small and dosn't expect 90% of the population to go for internet-delivered everything this type of thing can be a success. After pets.com people said no one could make money selling petfood online, but actualy lots of people do. They just don't have multi-million dollar ad-campains.

    There will always be a few people rich and lazy enough (or in my case, rich and holding a suspended drivers license) to make something like this work.
  • I use Grubhub [grubhub.com]for this kind of thing in Chicago. Yes, you still have to call the restaurant directly, but it gives you a good list of what restaurants are open for delivery RIGHT THEN to your address, and gives you the menu and coupons.

    According to the SeamlessWeb site, it's only NYC now anyway, despite what the /. story says.


  • SeamlessWeb has been available in NYC (and surrounding areas, like Hoboken NJ) for years, I use it quite frequently. How is this news?
  • like Waiter.com [waiter.com] and a couple other ones that roam around the Bay Area.

    Guess nobody told them the dot-com boom was over.

    So, what's newsworthy about this? I know that the editors don't bother to read the stories, but this doozy makes it look like they've been living under a big rock.
  • Two company's have been doing this for years in Santa Barbara:
    Dining Car [dining-car.com]
    Restaurant Connection [restaurant...tionsb.com]

    The services are easy to use. The Restaurant Connection started doing deliveries over the phone years before the internet was readily available. The Dining Car moved into the city a few years ago with an established website. The thought was the Dining Car, with their superior technology and deep pockets, would push the Restaurnt Connection out of business however that did not happen. It was easier for the

  • My employer uses seamlessweb (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:49PM (#12804296) Homepage
    The insensitive clots ruling the world at my employer use seamlessweb so that all the worker bees would remain at their desks as long as possible.

    The system generally works very well, although the 10:30am cutoff time for lunch orders can come and go very ruthlessly leaving you without the free lunch for the day.

    The few problems we've had with the service have to do more with the vendors rather than seamlessweb. Some of them, especially the new restaurants in the system, have problems fullfilling the volume of orders sometimes.

    They recently revamped their user interface. The old user interface made the service look a little like someone was running it from their garage. The new one is definitely an improvement and looks very professional.

  • Nope, just New York (Score:5, Informative)

    by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Monday June 13, 2005 @12:51PM (#12804325)
    SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut)

    I just went to their site and it says New York only. Other cities "coming soon."

    Uhhhh... great article.
  • If you're in Pittsburgh, you can use http://wheeldeliver.net/ [wheeldeliver.net]. I've used it many times and it works quite well.

  • umm, far as I know it never went away [delivery.com].

    Triv

  • Big deal...it's been in the Netherlands [thuisbezorgd.nl] for quite some time with hundreds of delivery places around the country on the one site. I usually order once a week. Select your city/town, pick a type of food or restaurant and browser the menu, create your order and fill in your details. 1/2hr later the food's at your door.

  • Dominos @ Quikorder (Score:4, Informative)

    by ryen ( 684684 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @01:09PM (#12804506)
    I've been using Quikorder [quikorder.com] for my dominos pizza (yes i have a thing for pre-made cheap pizza delivered fast =) for about 5 years now. Even has ICQ message alert, online order history, and good coupon deals.
  • been faxing in lunch/dinner orders since the early 80's, e-mailing 'em since the early 90's, and in 1994 gave demonstration of what the "world wide web" was to management which including showing site for carry out pizza ordering..... this really isn't earth shattering news.
  • This looks like it fits the bill just fine. I submitted an email address and then did a quick search on restaurants available from my Manhattan apartment. The menu I received seems to have been written in part in Redmond:

    Spring2.Core.DAO.FinderException: UserData.$finder.Name found no rows.

    Server stack trace:
    at Seamless.Manhattan.DAO.UserDAO.GetDataObject(SqlDa taReader reader, ColumnOrdinals ordinals) in c:\data\work\seamlessweb\manhattan\src\DAO\UserDAO .cs:line 626
    at Seamless.Manhattan.DAO.Use

  • Papa johns. (Score:3, Informative)

    by blanks ( 108019 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @01:28PM (#12804699) Homepage Journal
    Papa johns has been doing this for years. Create an account, put in your different locations (home, office, friends) pick the order you want, delivered in the same amount of time as called in deliveries. Most of the time its even cheaper, they allways have internet specials.

    I would guess that a company that delivers different resturants food to your house would naturally take much longer then if you just picked it up your self, but for the chain companies that are handeling it them selves, papa johns has been doing it right for a whilel.

  • Here's what I need (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ChrisF79 ( 829953 )
    Often times I find myself too buzzed to drive but fresh out of 40's... and no matter what I offer the Pizza Hut guy, he just won't go pick me up a couple more. How about an online beer delivery service? I think the government would even subsidize the business to keep the drunks (me) off the street... just a thought.

  • WebVan Lament (Score:4, Interesting)

    by allgood2 ( 226994 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @01:41PM (#12804845)
    O' for the opportunity to once again lament the loss of WebVan. I loved them. Mourn. Mourn.

    But in all seriousness, just because the dot.com boom folded, doesn't mean that the idea was bad. WebVan died because it overextended itself massively, thinking it would have time to make a profit; and was caught rather unaware of the failing dot.com industry. Executive stupidity, sure, but a bad idea NO!! If they would have just kept to two primary markets during there fateful last year, they could have survived the crash, and be raking in the dough today. Many stores not offer delivery, because WebVan showed them that there was a market for it.

    Also not to knock Seamless Web, but Waiter's On Wheel (Bay Area) and Waiter.com (Bay Area & Silicon Valley) both managed to survive the dot.com bust, and still deliver food from great restaurants without the super high mark-up. Up to 15% for the business charge just seems excessive; and already seems to be pushing some of their clientele into establishing their own services. The Japanese grill mentioned has a nice clean easy to use web site. Nice enough that if I knew I wanted food from them, I'd order directly from them to save both me and them money.

    Of course, I admit sometimes, I used Waiter's On Wheels when I was uncertain what I wanted for dinner. Having access to a large array of menu's that aren't limited to pizza specials has its own value.

  • Been going strong here in Detroit. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Deal-a-Neil ( 166508 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @02:01PM (#12805063) Homepage Journal
    Delivery Butler (site here) [deliverybutler.com] is a Detroit based food takeout delivery service, and they've been around for some time and doing very well (since Nov 2001). I've used their online interface, and didn't have to do anything until the fella came by 45 minutes later, and dropped off my food, and drove away with my tip. I even paid my entire bill online. I'm sure there are others, too.. so not to be one of those boneheads, but this really isn't news.

  • This is new? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jedrek ( 79264 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @02:14PM (#12805204) Homepage
    Over here in Warsaw, I've been using a number of various services like this: Room Service [roomservice.pl], , etc. Thanks to these places, I have a total of 48 restaurants I can order from at the click of a button (or a phone call, if I feel like it.) [dinnerexpress.pl]

    We even have 3 (mostly) high-end supermarkets that offer online ordering/delivery out of their brick-and-mortar locations. From what I understand, they've been making out like gangbusters.

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