WEBVTT - The Story: The Death of Dining In 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.200 Welcome to text Off. I'm Kara Price here with Oz Valascian. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.880 Hey Oz, Hey Kara. So I want to tell you 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:22.880 a story about young me. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.200 Okay, I grew up in New York, and growing up, 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.520 we lived in this small apartment and. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.520 We had this little play kitchen for me. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.959 Yeah, and of course like it had all the fixings, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.479 but I guess because it was a New York play kitchen, 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.640 it had a telephone in it, so I was sort 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.479 of playing at making dinner for my family, and my 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.440 parents recall this story of me going into the kitchen 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.200 and picking up the phone and calling for Chinese takeout, and. 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.000 That was you making dinner in the playhouse exactly exactly right. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.400 Are your parents embarrassed or they like, She's the apple 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.840 does not fall far from the truth. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.039 There are things that I said as a kid that 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.840 they embarrassed them. That was not one of the things, 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.280 because the truth is is that we mimic our parents behavior, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.680 and that's what my parents did. They ordered in So 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.080 there's a reason that I've told you the story. I 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.600 recently talked to Ellen Cushing, who's a staff writer at 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.280 the Atlantic who primarily writes about food and food trends, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.080 and she shared with me this kind of pun intended 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:27.600 het take. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.840 I think that delivery and what delivery apps have done 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:37.960 to restaurants is the single biggest change in food basically 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:39.640 since I've been alive. 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.039 I actually have some more first hand observations about this 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.880 because my stepfather owns a restaurant in London, and I 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:52.880 watched first hand the delivery door Dash, Uber eats ification 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.240 of his restaurant. He was actually a pioneer of doing 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.360 high quality restaurant food delivery for an Italian restaurant in 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.400 London in the kind of mid two thousands, and then 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.640 these tech platforms came along and it went from like 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.720 quite a significant share of the business back down to 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.600 a very small share because the margins they take are 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.360 so much that it's basically not worth It's not really 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.600 worth doing unless your business is totally optimized for it. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.959 Yeah, I think it's something that if like you've ever 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.440 been to a restaurant, you obviously think about. But I 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.480 wanted to talk to Ellen because she demystified the sort 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.280 of how and why delivery apps have overtaken the food 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.840 industry and actually, like what really struck me about our conversation. 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.920 Beyond the impact of delivery apps on restaurants was the 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:37.680 impact these apps have had on. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.919 The actual dishes that are being served to. 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:45.680 Us, Like delivery apps are actually influencing what we eat. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:47.760 I'm very intrigued to hear what it is because I 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.360 love these I love and I'm slightly horrified by these 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.799 stories about how technology doesn't just meet our desires, that 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:54.959 actually shapes them. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.280 So I first asked Ellen for a brief overview of 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.400 the history of delivery food and how we actually got 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.079 to this particular moment where every restaurant on Earth seems 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.080 to have a takeout option. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.520 So let me take you back through the sands of 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.760 time to the nineteen nineties when and before that the 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.800 eighties and the seventies, when delivery existed. It was something 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:24.000 that mostly existed for Chinese and pizza. When I grew up, 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.560 I'm from California, but I grew up and we had 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.359 like a small stack of paper menus in a drawer 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.360 in our kitchen, and when we got takeout, you know, 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.800 you pull them out and you're kind of like, okay, 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.720 kids who wants like Kung pao chicken? And so you 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.400 would call the restaurant, they would dispatch someone who worked 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.560 for the restaurant and they would bring you your food. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.520 What changed in kind of the early twenty tens was 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.960 that it started being facilitated by this third party. So 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.000 you had a bunch of companies pop up, all at 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.240 the same time. They have since largely consolidated, but there 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.520 were six or seven companies that were like, we can 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.800 use phones, which everyone has now to facilitate delivery. We 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.640 will not be using employees of restaurants. We will be 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.560 using contractors. This was the era when like uber was 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.719 the future of everything, and so they were like, we 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:25.239 can use this army of contractors to deliver people's food 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.200 and it will theoretically be more efficient because you can 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.360 pick up from a bunch of different restaurants that are 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.559 on the platform and deliver to a bunch of different people, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.920 and you have this like wonderful economies of scale thing. 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:37.800 So that is the big change. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.480 It is very sad to me that kids will not. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.160 Grow up with the file folder full of menus that 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.680 I grew up with. That was such a You just 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.679 brought me back so much just thinking about that thick 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:51.919 stack of menus that you'd have to read That was 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.760 like early reading comprehension for me totally. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.160 And like it was such as a kid who loved food, 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.080 it was such a source of fascination. Wow, there's all 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.800 this food that I don't have. It's not food my 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.479 parents are cooking. You know, it kind of rocked. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.280 It's also very funny to think, like, you know how 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:13.040 gen Z is bringing back a lot of cassettes and 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.359 even like mail order stuff. Like the one thing that 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.480 I don't think is coming back is like delivery menus. 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.360 Probably not. I mean I think as a society we're 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.880 kind of post paper. Do what you think? Like, like 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.600 I feel like we don't even get right right, You 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.120 got a q comes from trees. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.359 Yeah, the QR code is not I'll never get on 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:36.679 board with the qure kid, but whatever. 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:38.640 That's taking us off track. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:44.080 So in the piece, you start by talking about the 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.719 moment that delivery apps were conceived by a college student 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.640 named Colin Wallace. So can you talk a little bit 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.680 about Colin and where his idea came from? 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.760 Yeah, and I should say Colin did not think of 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.680 delivery apps. He just developed a piece of technology that 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:04.440 help delivery apps talk to point of sale systems. The 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.960 details of that are like pretty technical, but basically, this 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.799 was a guy who was in engineering school at Georgia 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.640 Tech and he really wanted a sandwich. He had these 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.359 long lectures. He also, you know, he was going to 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.839 football games and he kept feeling like, what if I 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.960 could just get the food that I wanted delivered to 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.599 my seat? Because you have to go, you have to 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.040 stand in line, you're missing the game, et cetera. And 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.799 so it was pretty obvious. You know, he's an engineering student. 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:40.680 This is twenty eleven. Everyone has an iPhone basically, and 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.480 so he was like, I feel like there's a better 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:44.679 way to do this, and so he developed this system 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:50.800 that basically replaced a lot of the delivery infrastructure was 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.200 done by facts at this point, which is like a 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.520 sort of crazy technology to be using in twenty eleven. 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.760 So he figured out how to make it work on 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.880 the phone and the rest was history. And you know, 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.960 the company he started got acquired by grub hub and 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.800 he became head of innovation. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.840 So I guess the question that I have is, like. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.040 The popularity of these apps takes off in the twenty tens, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.720 like for those of us who kind of have always 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.640 adapted to the way that phones have changed things, which 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.960 is my generation. You know, all of a sudden, grub Hub, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.480 door Dash, Seamless, you know, all these apps sort of explode. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.000 I'm using them all the time to do just about anything. 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.800 I remember one time I broke my ankle and I 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:44.000 ordered a wee charger from GameStop on uber on uber each. 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.440 Oh, so, like there's no question. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.120 Now we go from you know, like very specific foods 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:56.160 being kind of the ubiquitous takeout food to literally anything 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.200 you can possibly imagine being something that you can get delivered. 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.920 I mean, other than you know, Colin's invention. What is 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.480 responsible for this pivot to like everything being on demand? 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:15.240 The answer, Kera is money. That is that's what's important here. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.600 So this is again early twenty tens. This is a moment. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.400 I was living in San Francisco in the time. There 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.160 was a lot of money, There was a lot of 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.680 venture capital, and you know, VC is kind of winner 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.640 takes all. I would say, it is a industry that 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.320 is very much ruled by fomo. And there was this 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.440 idea at the time that like, whoever wins the delivery 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:41.160 wars will get access to a market of everyone who 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:46.079 eats food, Right, So all of these different companies wanted 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.680 to win, and all of these people that were funding 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.280 these companies were just pouring money into it. And you know, 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.839 this was also the era of the millennial lifestyle subsidy 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.800 zerp Like, you know, money was very cheap, and so 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.240 Silicon Valley was just like pumping money into all of 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.320 these companies and basically subsidizing the cost of delivery. So 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.560 what you have happening is you'd open Uber Eats or whatever, 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.680 and you'd get these like ads basically that are like 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.720 fifty percent off your first order, or like take twenty 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:21.920 dollars off when you order three times in a month 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.800 or something, and so they're like really incentivizing people to 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:31.280 order delivery. They're basically you know, delivery costs money because 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:38.720 you are adding labor and computer space and all kinds 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:44.360 of infrastructure to a relationship. Right, You're adding another party 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:49.199 to the relationship between the party who eats exactly. And 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.040 so what was happening was was like Sandhill Road was 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.120 like eating the extra cost. And so you have this 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:02.120 brief period in the early twenty tens. Delivery is ubiquitous, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.520 it's on your phone, and it's cheap. Like sometimes it's 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.160 even cheaper than like cooking for yourself or eating in 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.360 a restaurant. And so they basically, in a very short 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.080 amount of time, like invented a market that did not 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:20.559 previously exist, and then it invented the expectation that it 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.480 would be cheap. And that's very powerful. That's a very 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.120 good way to get people kind of like addicted to something. Right, 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.240 do you remember this era, like when delivery was so cheap. 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.120 I was going to say it was the promo code era. 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.840 It was crazy, like every time you ordered something you 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.000 could get fifty percent off. 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.520 Right, they were like please, we're. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:47.640 Begging you, well, basically pay you literally, and it was 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.600 because they wanted you to be loyal to grub Hub 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.480 or Postmates or whatever the app was, and they wanted 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:56.240 to lock you in. 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.960 Yeah, we were basically eating for free at that point, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:00.720 I remember this, And we were. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.360 Ubering for free, and we were getting access to all 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.839 of these like apps for very little money. It kind 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:08.839 of rocked. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.720 After the break White restaurants were forever changed by the pandemic. 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:31.040 Stay with us, So the pandemic happens and then all 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.200 of a sudden, delivery is the only way that restaurants 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.480 make money, right, and then the pandemic ends and people 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.000 don't want to change their behavior. And so my question 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.480 for you is, like, what is the difference between promo 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:53.840 code era to like delivery feels expensive again, but also 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.640 like restaurants are empty, So what happens? 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.520 Yeah, I mean, as you say said, like the pandemic 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.720 was this inflection point in that like every restaurant that 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.079 had been kind of holding out on delivery for various 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.559 reasons now reach this point where they were like, oh, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.960 we have to do this or bebo clothes. I remember, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:19.000 you know, fancy restaurants, like nice restaurants were suddenly doing delivery. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.280 Places that had been saying, you know, our food doesn't 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.199 travel well, or we think the economics don't make sense, 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.880 or we have enough customers already we don't need delivery. 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:31.960 We're now like, oh, we need delivery. And this was 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.720 also a moment when, like you know, ordering delivery sort 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.640 of became virtuous. It became like a victory garden, like 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:41.720 if you want to keep a restaurant in business, you 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:43.160 should order delivery from them. 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.280 Yes, I remember that was right, because I mean, delivery 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.720 workers were essential workers at the time, and it was. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.599 It was totally. It was like a mark of supporting 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:54.640 the economy. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.959 Yes, exactly. It was like we're all going to get 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.959 through this together. Like order a burrito, your party has 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.960 change you wish to see in the world. 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.160 Yeah, exactly, exactly exactly. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.520 But in answer to your question about like how it 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.640 seems like delivery has gotten more expensive, it has. Part 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:19.280 of that is that some municipalities have added taxes onto 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:24.280 delivery to account for the fact that drivers need pay 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.360 and delivery is kind of like one big externality that 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.959 affects cities a lot, and so various places have added surcharges. 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.359 But the real difference is that Silicon Valley stopped subsidizing 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.600 it because these companies had to make money at some point, 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.880 and so they pulled back the subsidies slowly. And so 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.679 now when you buy delivery, you're paying the true cost. 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.199 You are paying the cost of the food, the cost 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.320 of the labor, the cost of the overhead, the cost 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.280 for grub hub or whatever to make its cut. There's 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.720 a lot of people who need to get paid now, 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.800 and so you, the customer are paying that. 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.880 So can you talk a little bit more about the 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:13.400 economics of these apps like, how how does it work? 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.680 Yeah, if you are a restaurant and you sign up 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:25.240 for a delivery service, they are basically only three Now 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.120 three companies control something like ninety eight percent of the 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:37.280 delivery market in the US. It's basically DoorDash, Uber and 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.760 grub Hub is much smaller than the other two. But 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.600 you sign up for one of these companies, there's different tiers, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:51.680 but basically you are paying them for listing you on 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.560 their app. You're paying them for facilitating the delivery, You're 0:14:55.600 --> 0:15:00.080 paying them for you know, placement within the app. If 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.680 you open a delivery app, now you'll notice maybe that 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.520 there's a lot of kind of like sponsored listings, or 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.320 some random place will show up as like the best 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.960 Indian food in all of New York City and you're like, 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.680 this place has like two stars, Like how did this happen? 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.760 And that's because they have paid extra. The rest of 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.960 it us paid exactly, you know, And this is not 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.600 unique to delivery apps at all. Like this is true 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.720 on Yea and Google Maps, and it's true kind of 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:34.360 everywhere on the internet. But that costs money. So restaurants 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:39.160 are basically just turning a cut over to fees that 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.000 are paid to the delivery apps. 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.640 And you spoke to delivery drivers in this piece like 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:47.800 this is not a lucrative job. 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.880 It can be, you know, you will talk to drivers 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:56.840 who say, someone tipped me one hundred dollars on a 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.920 ten dollars order of wings. It's like any service job 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.320 where it can be kind of random. But no, they 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.680 are not paid by the hour. They're paid by the delivery. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:12.200 That of course incentivizes delivery drivers to move quickly, not safely, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.560 which can be a problem in cities. They are often 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.200 driving really long distances. You know, I talked to a 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.080 delivery driver who told me that he delivered like a 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.720 cup of ice cream, like you know, like a single, 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:27.480 not even like that. 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.920 I mean, some of the things that I've ordered, I can't. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.640 I ordered a sleep like I ordered like two crispy 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:33.760 cream doughnuts the other way. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.560 I mean, it's just salthy, And how should you pay 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.640 for them? I don't want to. And that's when you 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:39.160 close your eyes. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:40.880 That's between you and your God. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.840 That's right, yes, and the God of my understanding for 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:44.720 sure exactly. 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.840 You know, he drove like something like thirty miles to 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.240 deliver this. He lives in a really rural area in 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:58.120 South Carolina, and he's making like three dollars for forty 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.760 minutes of work before gas and you know, maintenance and stuff, 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.199 and the person who's paying like fifteen dollars. So no, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.240 it's not really a lucrative job. I think delivery companies 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.479 would say these people are independent contractors. They choose how 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.399 much they work, they set their own hours. It's a 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.280 great job for college students or people who need to 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:20.919 make a little bit of money on the side, but 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.840 nobody is acting like this is the first step on 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.520 a career ladder that will support you and your family 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:28.600 for the rest of your life. 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.719 Right, and yet it's very accessible and something that people, 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.439 I mean, especially in cities like New York, it feels 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.480 like everybody I see on a bicycle, everybody that I 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.639 see in a car is somebody who's picking up something 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.200 from a restaurant to take to somebody's house. Yes, and 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.760 the lines outside of restaurants are and that's that was 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:49.480 one of the things that really stuck out to me 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.919 about your article is like, is this idea of like 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.679 not so much how delivery has transformed the way we 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.520 get food, but it's also transformed what idea of a 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.760 restaurant is and like why does the restaurant exist? So 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.240 from your point of view, like in twenty twenty five, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.920 like what is the purpose of a restaurant and has 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:15.200 that changed on account of the explosion of delivery apps. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.880 That's the core of this and part of the reason 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:19.840 I wrote this story to begin with. I just kept 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:25.120 having this experience after Lockdown ended of going into restaurants 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.960 in New York City and they would be like two 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.720 thirds empty on a Friday night and there would be 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.679 like fifteen delivery guys in the front of the store 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.040 picking up food, and it would it didn't seem that 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.480 good for them or for the people working at the restaurant, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.840 and it was sort of a bad experience for me 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.159 as the diner. So yeah, I mean, I think that 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.960 it often feels to me like a lot of restaurants 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.600 are kind of like glorified vending machines. 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.199 Now, like that's what it feels like. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.680 Delivery has changed the way people who run restaurants run restaurants, 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.639 and it means when you build a restaurant, you are 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:08.359 probably having way fewer tables and way more space for 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:13.520 delivery drivers to congregate. You're having shelving for the delivery orders. 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.080 Some of them have separate entrances for delivery versus din 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.240 in because you know, you're essentially kind of like cramming 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.800 two experiences into one where you're like in a restaurant 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:28.399 and a delivery driver's like backpack. It's like hitting you 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.280 on the head and you're like, it's just good. And 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.400 then in terms of the food, you know, I talk 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.639 to restaurant tours who are like, I'm putting more brazes 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.600 on my venu, I'm doing fewer like deep fried things 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:43.879 because they just don't travel well. This is kind of 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.800 the reason that everything's like a bowl. Now, if you've 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.639 noticed that bowls travel really well, they're kind of like 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.520 saucy and gloppy, and they're not meant to be like crunchy. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.280 You know, anything that's crunchy is not going to travel well. 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.920 The nineteen fifties was not a time for the US 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:01.680 EBOL or the Ploi. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.840 Certainly not no, no, no no. But twenty twenty five, Oh. 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:07.400 Baby, that's really interesting. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.639 Like that's basically what's in is like the thing that 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:10.440 is portable. 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.320 Maybe that's the best argument against delivery is that it 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:14.760 makes the food taste bad. 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:15.920 It's crazy. 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.199 Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I guess my question is is, like, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.680 if we keep going down this path and restaurants become 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.080 less and less of an in person experience, like what 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.239 happens to the industry. And obviously you did a lot 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.120 of reporting on this, it does seem a little bit 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.480 dire for restaurants, and like, is there anything that looks 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.320 like course correction post pandemic? 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:40.760 I mean, really, where I see this going is I 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.480 think it'll be like movie theaters, where like, obviously people 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.719 are not gonna stop eating, people are not gonna stop 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:52.159 like consuming, right, but like you're gonna see restaurants close. 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:54.679 You're kind of always gonna be worried that your favorite 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.800 one is going to close. They'll become rarer and rarer. 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.199 It'll be this special thing that you do sometimes if 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:04.800 you are an enthusiast. And that really freaks me out 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:06.440 because I love restaurants. 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.640 Yeah, that's such a good analogy. I didn't think about 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.280 it that way. But the movie theater sort of as restaurant. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.080 It's the ease factor that's sort of cannibalizing the thing. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.280 And if you don't care about the experience to begin with, 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.200 is it something that you're going to try to preserve. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.920 You know. I got a lot of email after this story, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.479 and a fair amount of it was from people saying like, 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.679 I don't like restaurants. I don't like having to tip, 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.000 I don't like sharing space with other people. I don't 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.200 like waiting for my food, like basically a good riddance. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.720 And I was kind of surprised by that, just because 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:46.760 if I have not already like tipped my hand and 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.440 en augh, like I love restaurants. I love going to restaurants. 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.320 So yeah, I mean, I do think some people truly 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.240 don't care. I think with movie theaters it's going to 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:57.720 be one of these things that we kind of like 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.480 miss when it's gone. But yeah, I think some people 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.640 just don't like restaurants. Don't care, don't care if they 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.879 go away, don't care if they change so much as 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:11.080 to be unrecognizable. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.760 It is such a strange phenomenon because on one end, 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:20.000 it is so miraculous that we live in an age 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.400 where you can have everything on demand, and then it's 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:30.280 also like pretty spectacular how that thing that facilitates such 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:35.560 an ease of sort of on demand life is the 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.760 thing that might cannibalize the thing we're actually benefiting from. Again, 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.520 not to sound overly romantic about it or bleeding heart, 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.160 but I think we forget the cost of the thing 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:47.600 when we're getting what we want. 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:52.399 Yes, and look, there's a whole apparatus that is designed 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:54.800 to make you forget about the cost of the thing. 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:03.640 The thing about a frictionless service is that it's designed 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.600 to alide all of the effort that goes in Tech 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.480 companies are really good at this, Like their whole thing 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:14.000 is eliminating friction. You know. Amazon is kind of the 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:18.879 same way, like next day delivery. If you actually think 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:24.639