Sunday 20 November 2022 04:26 AM Restaurants abandon UberEats and MenuLog urging customers to boycott trends now
Restaurant and café owners have urged Australians to boycott delivery platforms like UberEats as many switch to an in-house delivery service after Deliveroo's demise.
Owners slammed delivery applications over constant service issues and for not providing support to businesses.
Deliveroo abruptly shut its doors on Wednesday leaving thousands of workers without a job, and further entrenching UberEats' market dominance.
The company claimed poor profits and an increasingly competitive market against Uber Eats, Menulog, DoorDash and Takeaway.com was behind the sudden closure.
Australian business owners have urged customers to stop using third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats and Menulog as many don't provide 'any real support' to outlets (stock image)
Chris Lucas, who owns Melbourne hospitality group Lucas Restaurants, said he was done with third-party apps due to ongoing service issues.
'We've never really been satisfied with the level of service that we receive,' he told the Today show.
'We've always had lots of issues, non-delivery of food, you know, drivers not picking up on time and it was a very problematic service and at the end of the day, certainly wasn't profitable for us and we always found it very difficult working with these multinational companies.'
The restaurateur said third party delivery services were 'not Australian' owned and he didn't feel they had 'any real brand ownership'.
Mr Lucas now only uses an in-house delivery service for his restaurants and takeaway stores and felt using third-party delivery companies 'wasn't worth the headache'.
'For us it was a logical decision to just cut all ties with all the delivery apps since really we had so many complaints from all our customers over the last few years,' he said.
The business owner added that the same companies, in his view, 'really exploited the situation' during Covid lockdowns and didn't provide 'any real support' when there were glaring problems with drivers, deliveries, or transactions with customers.
'I never really left that period thinking to myself that we had true partners there that would support us in good times and in bad,' he said.
His restaurants and takeaway outlets, which include Baby Pizza and Hawker Hall, have been wiped off all delivery apps.
Chin Chin, which serves Southeast Asian cuisine and has restaurants in both Sydney and Melbourne, was taken off the apps last year.
Melbourne restauranteur Chris Lucas (pictured), who owns Lucas Restaurants, slammed third-party
