There’s work involved in making the shift to delivery and takeaway — time and money that a restaurant likely does not have to spend. In the best-case scenario, the model effectively turns restaurants into so-called “ghost kitchens,” eliminating the need for nearly all front-of-house staff. David Chang has called the pivot to delivery “fools gold.”

Before the pandemic, delivery apps made sense to drive incremental sales for restaurants that primarily made money on dine-in customers, says Chris Monk, founder and chief executive of Your Fare, an Austin, Texas-based startup that sells a system to restaurants for consolidating orders from delivery services. For most restaurants, though, the math ... See more

It would be glib to suggest that most restaurants can survive by simply pivoting to delivery. Indeed, many won’t—and not just because some consumers might be afraid of lukewarm trout. The bigger problem is that the most popular delivery items (appetizers and entrées) tend to be the least profitable, while delivery consumers rarely order the higher-... See more