Have you ever had one of those nights where you’re too exhausted to make dinner, don’t have something unthawed, or just want to relax and enjoy a yummy meal with your husband after you get the kids tucked into bed? We feel like that quite often and too often my husband ends up running out to grab something to either feed the whole family or just us after we get the kiddos down for the night. We are lucky to live in an area with tons of options, but even though we have lots of restaurants around, we don’t have many options for delivery unless we’re in the mood for pizza. Enter DoorDash.
DoorDash is a new delivery service that makes ordering for dinner a step even easier than doing it yourself. You just download the app, put in your delivery address, and the list of restaurants pops up on the screen – – then you order and they do the rest for you!
We tried it out for their opening night in Charlotte last week and I’m sharing our experience.
First, we chose Olive Garden. This is one of our favorite spots and we actually order there for date night’s in pretty frequently. We each ordered an entree and a dessert and I always have to add on dipping sauce for our breadsticks (a favorite!) We didn’t order expensive entree’s by any means and the first thing we noticed when browsing the menu was in the inflated prices. When I saw each menu item at every restaurant ranges from $1-$3 more than buying it straight from the restaurant, it made me really anxious to see how well the service was from DoorDash and whether it was worth the extra cost. Here’s how our order went down :
First, you order from the app. Your order gets sent to DoorDash and they give you an estimated delivery time on each restaurant listing before you order. DoorDash then called us shortly after putting the order through to ask a question about our order then went on to order it from the restaurant.
We got text updates throughout so we knew where the ordering process was at. This part, I loved. When we order straight from the restaurant, they just give you an estimated time and that’s it. Since we were getting our kids to bed, having the updates was definitely great. I also appreciated that we could text our driver and request he not ring the doorbell to wake our sleeping kids and actually get the actual person delivering rather than relying on someone who took our order to remember to tell them.
Once our food arrived (within 5 or 10 minutes of our predicted delivery time,) our driver let us know the restaurant had forgotten to add a few extra things we requested, so it was nice that they were on top of that to be sure everything on our order was included.
What We Loved
The updates made the whole process go so much smoother
Easy to order via your phone
The variety of restaurants available
The friendly employees and driver
What We Didn’t Love
The price. The highly inflated prices made the whole meal cost a lot more! The receipt from Olive Garden DoorDash paid for was left in our bag when we got it. The total from Olive Garden was was only $45, while our bill was $68 paid to DoorDash!
Paying the higher prices + $6 delivery fee.
All in all, the service is great! But, for our family, it’s definitely not worth it for us to do on a regular basis. It may be something I would utilize if my husband is out of town and I’m wanting something other than pizza and don’t want to get all the kids out to pick up something for dinner, but we will be way more likely to order the take out and have my husband just go pick it up to save money on the extra cost for the delivery. I realize they need to be compensated for their work, but in addition to their delivery fee, to pay the extra cost for the food, and they even make you add on your tip when you order from the app before even seeing how well the service is, the extra cost is just not worth the 15/20 minutes you may save having them deliver it for you. Even the extremely high prices for fast food like Chick-Fil-A make a family meal that’s normally super affordable, not affordable to do on a regular basis.
I would definitely recommend it if you’re really craving one of your favorite restaurants and can’t get out to get it, or if you are hosting a business lunch or something where you can expense the bill or split the extra cost – the service would definitely be convenient for you, but if you’re just a couple looking for a cheaper date night in like we do, this would definitely not be cost effective. We could go out to dinner and pay a babysitter for the same or less than our meal cost and I actually had to pay out of my own pocket for our meal of spaghetti, chicken parmesan, and dessert for the sake of this review!
To take a look at some of the restaurants available in your area, go download the DoorDash app and check it out! Some of the restaurants available for me were :
Chick-Fil-A
The Rusty Onion
Thai Taste
Olive Garden
Panera
Outback
Arby’s
Red Robin
Red Lobster…. & so many more!
“And for my local readers, use promo code “CROWESNEST” for $5 off your first order of $12 or more!
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