A lot of what you hear and read about the big delivery networks — DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, etc. — is that they’re a terrible economic deal for restaurants. It’s an especially tough tradeoff for neighborhood restaurants and startups, which don’t have much leverage or much profit margin to spare.

For resilience in the future, restaurants are going to need to master takeout and delivery. The problem is those delivery startups like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Skip the Dishes take up to 25% of a restaurant's revenue. Restaurant profit margins are already razor-thin (3%-5% is normal). It's predatory for venture-backed delivery companies to be taking... See more