Seattle Invoice Would Ban Supply Apps From Itemizing Eating places With out Permission

There could be big changes in restaurant delivery in Seattle soon. A newly proposed city council bill would require all third-party food delivery platforms to have a written service agreement with a restaurant before placing them on their apps, which wasn’t always the case with Grubhub and Uber’s Eats and DoorDash.

According to the proposed bill, restaurants can terminate the contract at any time with a written request – the app company would then have to remove the restaurant from its platform within 72 hours. Penalties for non-compliance would be $ 250 per violation, and restaurants would have the right to sue delivery apps (individually or as a group) for violations. The proceeds from any fines would be used to support small Seattle restaurants (with five or fewer employees).

Seattle legislation closely follows a similar law recently passed in California that requires third-party companies to remove all unaffiliated restaurants from their apps. That law came after Pim Techamuanvivit, the owner of the Michelin-starred Kin Khao Thai restaurant in San Francisco, detailed her problems with GrubHub, Seamless, and other apps that allegedly put food on her without her permission in January 2020 Listed menu. Not long after after Techamuanvivit’s complaints, Seattle’s own high-end restaurant, Lark, had problems with Seamless – the app listed the Capitol Hill destination in its app, even though Lark doesn’t offer takeout or delivery.

Third-party apps often list restaurants that they don’t have official agreements with in order to keep up with the competition. In October 2019, Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney said in a letter to shareholders that expanding such a practice was an important part of the company’s business strategy. At the time, Grubhub admitted in a statement to Eater that “the partnerless model is undoubtedly a poor experience for guests, drivers and restaurants. But our colleagues have shown growth – albeit no profits – with this tactic, and we believe there is an advantage to having a larger restaurant network: finding new guests and not giving guests any reason to go elsewhere. “

Such a practice has already left companies like Grubhub vulnerable to lawsuits, and the pandemic has put even more focus on the relationship of delivery apps to restaurants, especially when it comes to high service fees. But delivery issues have continued over the past year, even for restaurants that didn’t mind being on the apps. When the legendary Café Cafe Racer finally closed its location in the U District in the summer of 2020, Uber Eats took orders for several months from customers who saw the menu published on the app and thought it was still open. Owner Jeff Ramsey attempted to contact any apps the cafe had previously used to cancel services but wasn’t able to complete the process until early 2021.

Not to mention numerous complaints from owners and employees of local restaurants saying they attacked themselves because of errors by delivery drivers, customers seeing outdated menu items, or glitches in the apps themselves. The popular Féliard Deli Schmaltzy’s, for example, has given up all third-party delivery services because of the service issues they cause. The executive summary of proposed Seattle legislation states that such incidents “can damage a restaurant’s reputation and result in loss of income if customers post poor reviews to discourage others from ordering from that restaurant.”

Seattle’s new bill aims to alleviate some of those headaches. If the law is passed, there are 90 days before the law goes into effect to give restaurants and platforms time to make adjustments and sign new contracts. The city council will discuss the bill in committee on Thursday June 4th, with a full vote expected around June 14th.

Council President Lorena González told Eater Seattle: “My office has heard from many local, independent restaurants about the challenges they faced during the pandemic. I introduced CB 120092 to help restaurants sustain the guest experience they work so hard on by making sure that their presence on a delivery platform is in their hands and that they can “own” the guest experience from start to finish. ”

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