The Best and Worst of Food Delivery Services in Philly

Getting food delivered has moved way past calling up the corner pizza joint. That same pizza, and pretty much every other edible item out there, is now silently summoned through a variety of websites and mobile apps that take your order, keep you updated on its progress, and enlist couriers to deliver to your door. All you have to do is pick which one to use.

It sounds simple, but with so many services offering the same thing, sifting through the lists of restaurants and parsing fees can get confusing. Here’s the lowdown.

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Caviar

Caviar charges an average flat rate of $4.99. But that can vary from as low as $0.99 up to $6.99 depending on distance. When an order is placed affects the cost too — there’s surge pricing, similar to ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft. Caviar folded in the locally developed MainLineDelivery.com.

Pros: A wide variety of restaurants, including many higher-end eateries not available through other delivery sites. Caviar also just added a pick-up option.

Cons: The service can get expensive, especially during dinner time, and some restaurants mark up dishes.

Grubhub

Grubhub is now the OG of food delivery. Seamless was developed in 1999, but merged with Grubhub in 2013. In 2015, Grubhub took over DiningIn. You can still order from the Seamless site, but it’s really Grubhub.

Pros: Huge selection

Cons: Long waits

Postmates

Originally developed in Silicon Valley, Postmates paved its way into major cities across the U.S. The brand allows you to order from fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Wendy’s and doesn’t have a minimum total.

Pros: Chipotle on demand

Cons: There’s a standard service fee of nine percent, plus occasional price surging. The search function has difficulty filtering down beyond general categories like “Chinese” or “pizza.”

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UberEats

A spin-off of the ride-sharing service, startup-within-a-startup UberEats launched in Philadelphia late last summer. It charges a $4.99 ordering fee.

Pros: The search function is on point.

Cons: The service isn’t available in certain suburbs. Plus, being associated with Uber might be a downside for some potential users.

Eat24

Owned by Yelp, Eat24 is known for its delivery robots roaming the streets of San Francisco. Unlike some of the other services, Eat24 gives you the option of pick-up instead of delivery.

Pros: Accurate time estimates for when food will arrive

Cons: Few high-end options

Foodler

The Foodler selection is mostly casual restaurants. You can pay through Venmo and even (yes, really) Bitcoin.

Pros: Foodler’s rewards program lets you earn instate rebates and points redeemable for “FoodlerBucks.”

Cons: Limited selection