Restaurant owners hate 30% commissions that delivery services like DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats charge them for many orders. But now, one very popular New York City spot is fighting back.
Morgan’s Brooklyn Barbecue, widely regarded as one of the city’s best places for Texas-style, dry-rub grilling, encourages its customers to put in orders through the restaurant’s own web sites and app – not the big tech services.
Morgan’s at 267 Flatbush Ave., a few blocks from the Barclays Center on a corner where Prospect Heights and Park Slope converge, is a pioneer in the trend. Matthew Glazier, owner of the thriving spot with a cozy rustic interior and bustling sidewalk terrace, said that since he set up a dedicated app six months ago, orders placed directly by customers increased from 5% to 15% of all of Morgan’s deliveries.
And he’s shooting for 50% eventually, although he knows that won’t happen overnight.
Glazier said delivery app companies wouldn’t budge on the 30% commissions they were charging him.
He “tried to negotiate, but I get nowhere even though we are high-volume,” said the restaurateur.
Glazier still uses Uber Eats and Grubhub, but recently decided to prioritize taking orders straight from customers.
“Although we [previously] took orders on our own site, we doubled down about six months ago to really focus on this,” he said. “We try to increase the percentage of direct orders with e-mail blasts to our customers through a platform we use called owner.com. We also put messages in bags reminding them they can order from us directly.
“When people place orders through our site or the app, the information goes to Uber Eats or DoorDash, which handle deliveries for us,” Glazier explained. “They charge us a $3.99 fee, but it’s much less than 30%.”
Asked for comment Tuesday, a Grubhub spokesman said, “Grubhub wants restaurants to succeed no matter what channel they use, because when they win, we win.”
Morgan’s is one of the city’s top barbecue places, where longtime chef Cenobio Canalizo mans the big, red, wood-fueled smoker from Mesquite, Tex. Its dry-rub menu is famous for a “holy trinity smoker plate” of brisket, house-smoked sausage, pork ribs and cornbread.
Eater.com critic Robert Sietsema wrote that Morgan’s ranks with “great barbecues, up there with Hometown, Hill Country and John Brown.” The Infatuation calls it “one of the great places to spend some quality time with your inner neanderthal.”
But Morgan’s became a victim of its own success. As its fame spread to distant parts of town and beyond, many more customers than before ordered home delivery from farther afield, putting a strain on the kitchen – and cheating the place of nearly one-third of the value of every order.
What Glazier called “a different source of revenue than butts in seats” of course took on much greater importance during the pandemic. Before Covid hit, Glazier’s business was 90% dine-in and only 10% orders.
“Now I’d say we’re 60% take-out and delivery versus 40% eating in. It was up to 70% a few weeks ago when we were in the Arctic,” he joked about this year’s brutal cold-weather snap.
“We built something people come from across the city for,” Glazier said. “The question was always, why make them come to us?
“Expanding our delivery radius is just us meeting our customers where they are. The barbecue found its audience long before the delivery radius did. We’re just catching up.”
DoorDash and Uber Eats did not immediately answer requests for comment.
