Food app eases financial burden on restaurants during pandemic
Local eateries joining Dine Niagara platform after it launched in January
A new food-ordering app in Niagara aims to take the sting of delivery commissions away from local restaurants.
Port Dalhousie’s Tim Empringham said he started his service Dine Niagara to help restaurants get through the pandemic by avoiding the hefty commission fees food delivery companies such as Skip the Dishes, Doordash and Uber Eats charge, sometimes up to 25 per cent.
While it doesn’t deliver food, the site aims to gather Niagara restaurants in one space to make ordering and pickup easier for residents. On his end, Empringham only requires $50 per month from each restaurant to cover the costs of running the platform.
“They’re knowing when they place the order, they’re actually doing the right thing to the restaurant,” he said. “The restaurant is not actually having to pay commission on it.”
Speaking with local restaurant owners, Empringham said service fees often mean they lose money with food delivery apps. He finds people will often go out and pick up their orders if they know all the money goes to the restaurant itself instead of commissions.
“It is one of the only ways to get their food out there, but are they angry? Absolutely. A lot of these restaurants are paying 25 per cent on every order, HST included. That works out to be about 28 and a half per cent of the revenue from that order. So basically, everything, and in some cases more than what they would make off that food in the first place.”
Customers can also be “dinged” using delivery apps, up to 10 per cent for some.
“The restaurants are using them because it’s kind of a necessary evil,” he said. “I have a lot of friends in the restaurant industry, so I’ve been hearing throughout this (pandemic) how bad these services are for them.”
Over Christmas, his wife convinced him to design “something better,” and after consulting with a restaurant owner friend, came up with the Dine Niagara platform.
About 15 restaurants have come on board so far, he said.
He stressed there is no profit in it for him. A senior director of credit systems with the Royal Bank, he simply wanted to help local restaurants stay afloat.
“It really is better for both ends of the equation,” he said. “If you’ve got to get up off your couch and drive five minutes to pick up your food to save $30, that seems like a pretty good deal.”