There’s nothing better than a takeaway from your favourite café or restaurant as a Bank Holiday weekend treat.
But some people in York are having to wait hours to get their food today (Sunday) as there aren’t enough delivery riders to meet demand, according to a restaurateur.
Wayne Chadwick said the system has become a shambles today.
Wayne, who runs the York Roast Co – home of the famous YorkyPud wrap – told YorkMix that deliveries from his Stonegate shop were being delayed by up to two hours.
The three big platforms – Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat were “intermittently putting us on pause, saying there’s nothing available – which means they’ll be doing it with other food outlets as well,” he said.
“Clearly there’s a huge deficit of riders in the town today.
“It’s a Bank Holiday weekend and we are extra busy. It’s caused massive problems for us – and I’m sure other outlets as well.”
Unhappy customers
When York Roast Co was allowed back onto the apps, and orders came through “there are significant delays, and we are getting phone calls from people who have ordered directly to the shop to ask what’s happening.
“Unfortunately, even though we rely on a third party to deliver our product, it is always us – the food retailer – that gets the blame for late deliveries.
“It is a shambles market today.”
One York customer told us that he ordered breakfast from a York food outlet at 10.30am today – and it didn’t arrive till 1.10pm.
And a restaurant worker in the city said he’d heard there was a shortage of riders because “people had picked the job up when unable to be in their normal job. Now the world is on the mend they have gone back to that and left delivery jobs.
“I work in a restaurant and the last two nights have been horrendous for collections as the main hubs obviously take the orders, then try to distribute.
“We frequently had riders 10+ mins late, not their fault, more that the demand outstrips the means especially if Deliveroo etc etc keep accepting the orders.”
However a York food courier told us: “As a rider, I’ve personally found waiting for actual orders to accept is what’s taking so long on our end. It’s really not that busy for us as food couriers.”