When my partner and I relocated to a new-to-us Chicago apartment — an antique-feeling number on the corner of the sixth floor — we made the mutual decision to forgo movers. “It’s just one studio apartment’s worth of stuff,” we reasoned. This was true, but we had underestimated two variables: December in Chicago and our motivation to schlep boxes after a seven-hour drive in a U-haul.
The day began agreeably enough. Snow fell in fat, lazy flakes, lending a picturesque quality to the afternoon. By the time we crammed the last moving box into the freight elevator, though, the sun had set, and we were sore and shivering. Upstairs, we surveyed our new home — bare walls, hissing radiator, mattress propped against the floor like a 1920s bohemian. The idea of assembling furniture or venturing out into the tundra for sustenance felt cruel.
“There’s always moving-night pizza?” I offered, albeit a bit unenthusiastically.
Stephen had a different idea: “I wonder if Pasta Bowl still delivers.”
Pasta Bowl, for the uninitiated, is a local red-sauce institution — a shrine to baked ziti and tiramisu. It had been years since either of us lived in the city, but nostalgia swelled. A half hour later, a teenager in a snow-dusted snowsuit pulled up to our building on a cherry red Honda Metropolitan, paper bag steaming with promise. We ate farfalle in cream sauce and tiramisu, huddled under quilts, watching “The Blues Brothers” on a laptop. It was magical, a tiny Chicago fairy tale delivered for $23.50, plus tip.
But if that first bite of food delivery here was rapture, the last was something closer to regret.
At some point during the pandemic, what began as a convenient indulgence — a way to “support local restaurants,” I told myself — became routine. The apps made it so easy. I’m part of the generation that remembers picking up the phone to order pizza, reciting your address to a distracted teenager who clearly hated their job. Apps eradicated all that. Tap, swipe, dinner.
The problem, of course, is that apps don’t just make delivery possible; increasingly, it feels they make it inevitable.
First, there’s the sheer abundance. Food delivery apps curate vast menus, spanning every conceivable cuisine, dietary preference and craving, transforming the act of choosing dinner into a delightful (if occasionally overwhelming) browsing experience. There’s something for everyone — and likely several somethings. Then, there’s the simplicity. With smart search functions and streamlined, intuitive navigation, platforms make ordering seamless. Then the countdown begins: As soon as you place an order, the real-time tracker kicks in, turning waiting into a kind of entertainment.
Plus, the apps are paying attention to you. Algorithms analyze your every click, crafting suggestions based on past orders and delivery patterns. Add to this an array of rewards points, loyalty programs and exclusive deals for frequent users, and suddenly every order becomes a step towards something: a free entree, perhaps, or a slightly reduced delivery fee. The financial integrations are seamless too, as they now span credit cards, digital wallets, even Buy Now, Pay Later options (which is something I noticed, in particular, when I realized over the summer that the “eating out and delivery” subsection of my budget had been steadily increasing for months).
I’ve been reflecting on the real cost of convenience and instant gratification when it comes to food. Not just financially, but ethically. Having spent a decade writing about food, I’ve seen the food delivery bubble swell — and now, begin to burst. As I reported in August, on-demand delivery isn’t working for anyone: not customers, not couriers, not restaurants, and not even the companies that created the apps.
As mentioned, the pandemic fueled explosive growth for food delivery apps like Grubhub and DoorDash, Global revenue soared from $90 billion in 2018 to $294 billion by 2021. Yet, despite this boom, the model remains broken. A 2024 Financial Times analysis revealed that leading delivery companies in the U.S. and Europe have racked up over $20 billion in combined losses since going public.
The cracks run deeper. These apps rely on underpaid gig workers while charging restaurants steep fees that erode already-slim margins. Chefs like Michelin-starred Philip Foss have argued the industry is “cannibalizing itself” by participating in these platforms, which increasingly feel like an unsustainable crutch.
“As a consumer, I get it,” Foss wrote for Eater Chicago. “The convenience and the wide selection of restaurants makes takeout in recent years as good as it’s ever been. And as someone who used the apps a lot (pre-pandemic), ordering delicious food from the sofa speaks powerfully to the lazy side of my heart.”
He continued: “The allure as a restaurant owner is obvious: Our goal is to get our succulent barbecue in front of people. And if the customer’s goal is to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible, the best way to do that is to open an app and have it delivered. So it’s on restaurants to try to make that happen. Well, we tried. But here’s the thing: Delivery apps are destroying restaurants, from mom-and-pop places to chefs with Michelin stars. They’re a terrible deal.”
Foss laid out how, after accounting for normal restaurant costs plus paying the commission fees third-party apps charge — which can range between 15% and 30% — he makes $1.50 on a $30 check. The delivery app? They would make $4.50 on the same order.
Here’s the thing: I love restaurants. I love the people who work in them, the creativity they represent, the chaos they thrive on. The realization that I was supporting an industry I love in a way that hurt it felt profoundly wrong.
I wish I could say that was the final straw, but my actual final breaking point actually came after a particularly dismal Chili’s order.
Now, I’ll confess, I’m a Chili’s apologist. I worked at one in high school, and I retain an affection for their queso and quesadilla explosion salad that borders on embarrassing. There’s something comforting about their suburban reliability: the sprawling menu, the faux-Texan aesthetic, the sizzling skillet of fajitas that makes everyone look up when it’s carried across the dining room. But this delivery order was all wrong. The chips were cold, the queso had congealed and the salad arrived limp and sad. The missing Sprite was the final insult.
I stared at the spread, deflated. With fees and tip, it had come to $65—a small fortune for something that looked and tasted like it had traveled through a time warp in a plastic bag. “I could’ve made this myself,” I muttered.
Then do it, my internal voice replied.
The next day — inspired by an early galley of “Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!” by Julio Vincent Gambuto — I deleted my credit card info from every delivery app on my phone. Then I deleted the apps themselves.
In the six months since, my approach to food — and, perhaps, to life in some small way — has shifted. Cooking, for one, has reasserted itself as a cornerstone of my days. That’s not to say I’ve become some domestic goddess. Many nights, dinner is bagged Caesar salad with rotisserie chicken. But there’s joy in piecing together meals from odds and ends in the pantry. There’s satisfaction in flipping through Pinterest (yes, really) and rediscovering the thrill of a good sheet-pan dinner.
Beyond the kitchen, after a month or two of cooking exclusively at home, I loosened the reins a bit and allowed myself to start calling in takeout or to-go directly from local restaurants, a small act of rebellion against faceless apps. There’s something gratifying about hearing a human voice on the other end of the line, about showing up to a restaurant and being greeted like a regular. It’s a reminder that food is not just fuel; it’s connection.
And that connection runs deeper than I realized. Every phone call, every in-person pickup feels like a small but meaningful vote of confidence in the people who make restaurants what they are — the line cooks perfecting a dish under pressure, the servers juggling trays with finesse, the owners who took a leap of faith. These interactions have reminded me that food isn’t just something to consume; it’s something to value.
Of course, none of this is to say food delivery is inherently bad. For plenty of people, especially those with disabilities or mobility issues, it’s a lifeline.
But for me, convenience had become a crutch, a way to avoid engaging with food — and, by extension, life — more thoughtfully. Cutting out the apps was a way to realign my values with my habits. It’s a practice of gratitude as much as it is of restraint: gratitude for the privilege of cooking, for the people behind every meal I don’t make, for the fact that I can choose how I nourish myself.
It also forced me to confront something larger: the cost of instant gratification. We live in a world where almost anything can be summoned with a tap, from payday loans to streaming shows to pasta alfredo. It’s dizzying and, at times, delightful. But it can also be numbing. By stepping back — just a little — I’ve begun to appreciate what I have, to find contentment in the slower rhythms of cooking and the small rituals of eating.
This winter, I might still call Pasta Bowl for a delivery. (They have their own fleet—no middleman required.) But I’ll savor it differently.
