Portland Could Regulate Food Delivery After Restaurant Complaints

For us, who don't necessarily feel like leaving our houses when we're in the mood to mow down some of Portland's most delicious foods, it's way easier for us to go the food delivery path and have someone else pick up our food and drop it right on our doorstep, right? Easy, we don't have to deal with people if we don't want to, pretty simple.

BUT, it turns out that without us knowing or realizing, it's doing a bit of a disservice to the local restaurants we love and support so much. According to the Portland Press Herald, even though some food delivery services mentioned having partnerships, there are some restaurants that weren't even aware their spots were being listed on the app.

What food delivery services are in Portland?

The main services that offer delivery in Portland are 2DineIn, Caviar, EatStreet, Uber Eats, Postmates, and Grubhub, with more services also available. Portland City Councilor, Andrew Zarro, who owns Little Woodfords, told the Press Herald that he recently had an issue with a Grubhub ad. On top of that, the Press Herald reports that there are claims against some of the big corporate food delivery services of creating impostor websites and changing actual business phone numbers.

Why are Portland restaurants against some food delivery services?

You wouldn't think there would be a major issue with local businesses being listed as a partner of a food delivery service without their knowledge since it could almost be seen as free advertising, but that could create a mess of problems. If the customer has a bad experience with the delivery, that could reflect back on the restaurant itself through a bad review. Add on top of that the possibility of an influx of orders that there may not be staffing for, and you can see the issue. Plus there's the part where these delivery services are making BANK off of you and profiting off of the actual restaurants themselves.

The good thing about all of this -- they're not looking at eliminating the food delivery services all together, just possibly enforcing formal agreements between the delivery services and restaurants, as well as regulating the fees they charge you, so that in the end, everyone wins and is happy.