Contents
The Offer
- GrubHub is offering a $5 discount when you spend $15+ or more when you use promo code 5SLICK2
Our Verdict
You can also get an additional 1x MR point per $1 spent with GrubHub. There has been a lot of food delivery deals lately:
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Just tried to use today and is now expired
Thanks
Does it have an expiration date?
Do the restaurants end up paying this? Or does GH eat it (pardon the pun)?
I’d be curious to know this as well. The $10 off $30 that GH had, the restaurants were on the hook for.
A local restaurant owner recently posted a copy of his bill from GH where it showed several hundred dollars being deducted in what I think were “targeted promotions” as well as significant commissions. He post a message saying (roughly) “GH is evil, do not use them”. Of course, he did do almost $3k of business.
I used a $20/25 from Ubereats this weekend (first time using UE) and felt kind of guilty since I got a lot of food for the $11 (including tax) that I spent. I felt even worse when they thanked me when I picked up my food. On the other hand, it was a place we haven’t been to in a long time and we will probably go back as a result of this experience.
Either way, Grubhub is a modern day protection racket that devours restaurants’ margins. I’ll only use them for large corporations, never on local mom & pop stores.
But the large corporations you are ordering from may be franchise locations owned by local people.
If it’s opt-in, (not all restaurants) I think there’s a decent chance the restaurant eats it. If it’s a general promo that covers all restaurants, I suspect GH is covering it.
End of day who cares? You get a deal, restaurant gets traffic, and GH takes a cut. As a consumer I don’t concern myself with restaurant margins. If they feel it doesn’t make business sense to use GH/DD/UberEats then they should take their business off these platforms. Either way it’s not my (the consumer’s) problem and there’s no reason to feel bad about it.
I never get why these restaurant complains about these apps. Nobody forcing them to be listed
Normally I don’t care but with restaurants in most of the country operating at dramatically reduced capacity (and volume), I feel a bit guilty taking money from them. On the other hand, I likely would not be ordering from them without the coupon, so hopefully they are still making money on me.
The way I think of it is, whenever I take advantage of these deals and have a good experience with a particular restaurant, I make it a point to visit the restaurant in person for a meal. Speaking generally, of course, given the pandemic going on right now.
I also make sure to leave ratings/reviews for every single order as well as try to spread the word. One could argue those types of actions would mean more to restaurants given the potential for additional business.
With all of that being said, I mirror your own feelings, especially since worrying about that type of stuff can quickly become a very slippery slope. If you start worrying about restaurants utilizing Grubhub, for instance, where does it end? Do you start questioning every coupon or discount you might take advantage of and the potential reverberations it might have, directly or indirectly? Do you begin to feel guilty for saving in general?
As someone who owns a small business myself, I ultimately feel this is the cost of doing business. We are all subject to market forces and, in some cases, unfair practices. I can’t worry about each and every individual business to the detriment of my own wallet, at least not until I hit the lotto lol.
Save now, reconcile your feelings later: that’s my motto. If I feel guilty about something after the fact I will potentially address it then, but if there’s a deal for the taking I am going to take advantage of it 100% of time while aiming to hold myself accountable later on.