Hey there, I’m from Germany, and I’m wondering how the food delivering culture is in the US since I often heard that it’s very common to order there. Because here in Germany it’s not very common to order delivery food. Many people only order pizza sometimes for some reason. Also, the variety here is very little, they don’t really offer proper meals and it’s very expensive too. When I order food just for myself, it sometimes costs around $30 even though it’s just fast food. How is it in the US?
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Quite common especially in more populated areas. Rural America and delivery is non-existent except maybe a local pizza place.
I’ve become addicted to delivery ever since the beginning of the plague and still order out almost every other day. But it’s getting expensive and I’m trying to cut it back. Many never order out except rarely, some exclusively eat out or order in and never cook. The latter is a more urban thing due to accessibility of delivery at all hours, but not every urbanite does it.
Insanely common in urban areas. The number of delivery riders in my neighborhood is off the charts.
I personally almost never order food. I think it’s kind of lazy. It is a rare treat when we do.
My young coworkers (under 30) have everything delivered, even from a restaurant a block away. I think it’s crazy.
I’ll just share that since the pandemic started, my partner and I began ordering food a lot more than we used to. Partly this was to support restaurants we couldn’t go to in person, partly it was to inject some income into the delivery economy, and partly it was because my work-from-home setup was (and still is) in my kitchen and therefore I didn’t have much interest in staying in the kitchen for another hour to cook a proper meal.
So we started ordering delivery three, even four nights a week. Sometimes even more. We felt really lucky that we still had income and I felt fine about spending it.
Since then we have come back around to cooking (and restaurants reopened, of course, so we can go out to eat again) but we still order delivery pretty frequently, once a week or so.
In NYC it’s incredibly common. It’s definitely expensive but that doesn’t stop people. Not a huge fan personally because if I’m paying restaurant prices I prefer my food to be warm and not soggy.
Pizza maybe once a month, otherwise not at all. We try to eat healthy and cook fresh.
Almost never because we’re on a budget. If we’re really busy and don’t have time to cook we will at least drive to the restaurant and pick up our order to save the delivery fees.
I rarely do deliveries because for a single meal, you’re looking at a $7 delivery fee + $5 tip generally, so $12 _just_ on the delivery. It’s wild and I’d rather just go pick it up. I don’t eat food from restaurants all that often to begin with, though. Usually just lunch once a week.
I do know people who use DoorDash or Uber Eats or whatever 1-2 times a day though.
Very, very common. I worked as a delivery driver all through high school, college, and grad school in a small town/suburban area. I worked for the restaurant directly (this is how most restaurants here operate) and we had 2 people working monday/Tuesday, 3 on wed/Thurs, 5 on friday/sat, and 4 on Sunday. Families ordered once or twice a week. They might have gotten delivery more often from another place too, I worked at a chinese/sushi restaurant so if they wanted pizza or Mexican or something they would have to order from somewhere else.
Now we get delivery like once a week, usually Friday. Growing up my family got it like once a week too.
Traditionally thr most common places to order delivery from are chinese and pizza places (idk how things are in geemany but here pizza places have more thzn pizza, they have basic italian dishes, grinders, wraps, salads). Idk why but those places always had delivery, a pub or a French place or a Mexican place generally wouldn’t. Our diner and our Greek place had delivery too but I don’t know if that’s typical. This has changed a little since covid, more places offer it now.
Edit: prices at my restaurant were the same if you dined in, picked up, or got delivery. However, it is standard that you tip your delivery driver so that is an additional expense.
My family orders somewhat often. Usually we get pizza 2-3 times a month and eat out at a proper restaurant every 2 months or so.
It’s more common in urban areas.
Traditionally, deliver consisted of:
* Chinese restaurants that often don’t have any inside seatings, this is typically just barely above a step of fast food. Usually a very limited delivery window of 2-3 square miles or so
* Pizza, and usually the major chains. YMMV on if your local pizza place offered delivery.
* If you work in a downtown central business district, there often were food delivery services that often worked out of commercial kitchens that delivered simple lunch items. Think salad and cold sandwiches, maybe soups or some hot items if they could guarantee freshness.
* And honestly, that’s about it.
Now with the apps and being in the After Times, almost anywhere can offer delivery but the apps often charge high markups and fees. And honestly there’s little guarantee that the food travels well, especially for places that haven’t traditionally offered delivery. There’s even ghost kitchens that only do delivery and have no pickup or dining services.
Personally I rarely order delivery. The last time I did is because I wanted pizza from a specific place and I was working and coudln’t go pick it up myself. I much prefer to do pickups or walk to one of the half dozen restaurants near me. I’ve got pizza, seafood, steaks, burgers, Meditarranean, thai, and Mexican all within walking distance.
As others noted, the standard is to tip delivery people similar to restaurant servers.
It’s a normal thing to do but the majority of people don’t order delivery for most meals. It would be outrageously expensive to rely on delivery for the majority of your meals, just the service charges alone would be hundreds of dollars per month.
I do it all the time. I especially like to order a vast amount of something that reheats well and eat it over the course of a few days. Saves time on meal prep, shopping, etc. My husband and I got sushi delivered for our anniversary (not one of those dishes that lasts awhile, lol) and it was so much nicer than going to a restaurant.
Its grown more common over the past couple years from just regular pizza joints to other restaurants due to the growth of Uber Eats Grub Hub, and Doordash. I could remember slowly watching the Uber Eats delivery expand towards my address as they slightly expanded it every month or so. When I first downloaded Uber Eats the delivery area stop like 1.5miles from my house and it took like 3-4 before it got to me.
I’d guess most people order food at least occasionally, but the frequency varies a lot. Many casual restaurants offer delivery now, usually through an app like Doordash or Uber Eats, but sometimes with their own drivers as well.
Very common. There’s a widespread delivery food culture that only got bigger with Covid. It used to be if you wanted something from an actual restaurant or fast food place like McDonalds, you had to go get it. However, multiple delivery services sprang up and now you can pretty much get whatever you want. Even complete meals from a nice restaurant.
It’s gotten very expensive anymore, though. Even fast food can cost between $15 to $20 for just one person these days. So it’s becoming less and less convenient.
Very easy. There are lots of apps to do it on like Grubhub, UberEats, etc.
Super common
Pre-pandemic, pre-smart phone, it was somewhat common with Asian food in cities. My local Thai food restaurant had their own delivery driver. Minimum order was $30 and you got free delivery within a certain range.
There was a sandwich shop that had their own delivery driver when I was in college.
Pizza delivery has been common my whole life. I don’t know when the practice started.
With the smart phone apps it has gotten very popular. But now people are getting upset about how expensive it is. They don’t remember the dearth of delivery before the apps. If it was easily profitable to have dedicated food delivery driver they would have been more numerous 10 years ago.
Common enough that I found food on my porch I didn’t order a couple of times this year. Once a neighbor came and got it, but the other time it just sat there for a few hours, so I grabbed it and had it for dinner. Not sure exactly what it was, though. Some kind of spicy Brazilian dish with shrimp and rice that was pretty good.
Common in general but it’s easy to find people who never, ever order delivery, either because it’s expensive or because you’re likely to get soggy, cold food.
I’m a cheap bastard and don’t want to pay the lazy tax (delivery fee). So if we want a non home cooked meal, I usually go pick it up.
We do pay for a grocery delivery service (Shipt). It’s like a $100 a year which my wife thinks is worth it so she doesn’t have to go grocery shopping every weekend which can take some time.
Very common in urban areas, less common but still used in suburban areas, rare or nonexistent in rural areas.
Very common. It’s not just fast food, either. You can get delivery from many normal restaurants as well.
My family usually gets takeout for dinner on Fridays. Sometimes we go out (ironically, one place that does not deliver is the taco truck; so when we want Mexican we have to actually go get it), but often we get it delivered. Last Friday we had Thai delivered.
I don’t know about Germany, but when I was in France earlier this year it seemed like, at least in Paris, you could get food delivered with Uber Eats. I arrived at my hotel late at night and got a meal delivered (actually that was Thai as well).
Food delivery is very common in a lot of places in the US like bigger cities.
Less common in small town or rural areas where delivery is often not available. There is no food delivery in my small town.
I order it from time to time. I ordered way more when I was single and when I didn’t have a car.
Very, very common except for rural areas.
It’ll cost me around $30 for a meal for myself from a pizza place, which is why I don’t get delivery very often
We probably do it 50% of the time. Some days it’s just easier.
I rarely order out these days, I’m broke lol. And delivery almost never. The various is great though, dozens of different cuisines are available if I want them
It used to be mainly pizza that we’d order delivery, but with online food delivery services becoming a thing it’s ubiquitous for all food.
I would say it depends on the region. Where I grew up my friends order out at least twice a week. In the country though, I almost never order out
We order in all the time.
I’ve lived in Germany, it’s not significantly different.
It’s too common. I, possibly stupidly, take pride in only picking up but I’m a rarity