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0 pointsbardworx6y ago0 comments

Ghost kitchens may be scams but I know at least of one QSR in Manhattan that does them successfully. In some instances they are quite profitable if you generate the volume.

Your commission is also a bit off, perhaps you speak from full service experience?

While true that base comm is 20-30, those numbers are always negotiated down. Grub/Seamless will take as low as 12 from high vol regional leaders while UberEats made some deals that are supposedly really low (McDonalds). I don’t have exact numbers but from my recollection they mentioned it in their S1.

While Danny Myers is quite smart, USH isn’t a barometer for the entire industry as his focus is more on full service.

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notyourday6y ago

> Ghost kitchens may be scams but I know at least of one QSR in Manhattan that does them successfully. In some instances they are quite profitable if you generate the volume.

It is a temporary fluke. If Chinese take out operators that are able to do razor thin margins and nearly completely unpaid labor force cannot make them work then no one can make them work

> While true that base comm is 20-30, those numbers are always negotiated down. Grub/Seamless will take as low as 12 from high vol regional leaders while UberEats made some deals that are supposedly really low (McDonalds). I don’t have exact numbers but from my recollection they mentioned it in their S1.

It is a creative lie by omission. Same kind of lie that Grubhub had when it forgot about the $$ it charged restaurants for answering phones that Grubhub setup.

There are maybe a dozen chains (McDonalds/Burger King/Chipotle/Qdoba/Subway/White Castle, etc) that can negotiate $1 fee. Your pizza place, your taco place, your take out sushi joint don't have this ability. If they did then the VCs would not fund DoorDash or GrubHub.

> While Danny Myers is quite smart, USH isn’t a barometer for the entire industry as his focus is more on full service.

Have you heard of Shake Shack?

bardworxOP6y ago

> It is a temporary fluke. If Chinese take out operators that are able to do razor thin margins and nearly completely unpaid labor force cannot make them work then no one can make them work

They can, and they do. One way some chains achieve this is by raising prices vs. in-store. By offsetting the cost, the economics makes more sense.

> It is a creative lie by omission. Same kind of lie that Grubhub had when it forgot about the $$ it charged restaurants for answering phones that Grubhub setup.

> There are maybe a dozen chains (McDonalds/Burger King/Chipotle/Qdoba/Subway/White Castle, etc) that can negotiate $1 fee. Your pizza place, your taco place, your take out sushi joint don't have this ability. If they did then the VCs would not fund DoorDash or GrubHub.

I personally know of chains that have less than 50 locations and have negotiated ~12-15% comm. I also know of a NYC deli with one location that runs at ~15-17 comm. Its about volume. You can negotiate anything with high enough vol.

Not sure what you meant by "creative lie by omission" or if you were referring to what I said.

> Have you heard of Shake Shack?

Shake Shack IPO'd in 2015. White Myers does sit on the board (chairman), they are different companies. Also, Shake Shack has only recently started going into delivery (check their latest 10-K) they are fledglings going from their own platform (OLO) to working w/Caviar/Dash/etc.

Again, successful, but not a barometer.

notyourday6y ago

> They can, and they do. One way some chains achieve this is by raising prices vs. in-store. By offsetting the cost, the economics makes more sense.

That's not allowed by the contracts. In either event 50 location chain is HUGE. Olive Garden has less than 1000 stores nationally. If you have 50 stores your chain is in the real estate business and it happened to have food as an additional line item.

> I also know of a NYC deli with one location that runs at ~15-17 comm. Its about volume. You can negotiate anything with high enough vol.

Unless you happen to own that deli I'm going to tell you that you are being lied to. No one does enough volume to do it.

> Not sure what you meant by "creative lie by omission" or if you were referring to what I said

Something else is padded. Delivery services won't make any money off the 10% commission.

> Also, Shake Shack has only recently started going into delivery (check their latest 10-K) they are fledglings going from their own platform (OLO) to working w/Caviar/Dash/etc.

The argument was that USG type companies only do full service restaurants. That's simply not the case.

> Again, successful, but not a barometer.

It is because it has been around longer than most of the startups in the delivery space, not to mention vendors to the startups in the delivery space that do not have actual restaurants.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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notyourday6y ago

> Ghost kitchens may be scams but I know at least of one QSR in Manhattan that does them successfully. In some instances they are quite profitable if you generate the volume.

It is a temporary fluke. If Chinese take out operators that are able to do razor thin margins and nearly completely unpaid labor force cannot make them work then no one can make them work

It is a creative lie by omission. Same kind of lie that Grubhub had when it forgot about the $$ it charged restaurants for answering phones that Grubhub setup.

> While Danny Myers is quite smart, USH isn’t a barometer for the entire industry as his focus is more on full service.

Have you heard of Shake Shack?

bardworxOP6y ago

> It is a temporary fluke. If Chinese take out operators that are able to do razor thin margins and nearly completely unpaid labor force cannot make them work then no one can make them work

They can, and they do. One way some chains achieve this is by raising prices vs. in-store. By offsetting the cost, the economics makes more sense.

> It is a creative lie by omission. Same kind of lie that Grubhub had when it forgot about the $$ it charged restaurants for answering phones that Grubhub setup.

Not sure what you meant by "creative lie by omission" or if you were referring to what I said.

> Have you heard of Shake Shack?

Again, successful, but not a barometer.

notyourday6y ago

> They can, and they do. One way some chains achieve this is by raising prices vs. in-store. By offsetting the cost, the economics makes more sense.

> I also know of a NYC deli with one location that runs at ~15-17 comm. Its about volume. You can negotiate anything with high enough vol.

Unless you happen to own that deli I'm going to tell you that you are being lied to. No one does enough volume to do it.

> Not sure what you meant by "creative lie by omission" or if you were referring to what I said

Something else is padded. Delivery services won't make any money off the 10% commission.

> Also, Shake Shack has only recently started going into delivery (check their latest 10-K) they are fledglings going from their own platform (OLO) to working w/Caviar/Dash/etc.

The argument was that USG type companies only do full service restaurants. That's simply not the case.

> Again, successful, but not a barometer.

It is because it has been around longer than most of the startups in the delivery space, not to mention vendors to the startups in the delivery space that do not have actual restaurants.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse