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Grubhub Promotion Strains NYC Foodservice

Specialty Food Association

A recent surprise lunch promotion by Grubhub to feed everyone in NYC and the surrounding area during lunch hours last Tuesday for free, led to mayhem for restaurants and delivery workers, reports The Guardian. Grubhub created the $15 off lunch promotion after conducting a survey which found that 69 percent of working New Yorkers often skip lunch.

A spokesperson for Grubhub said the platform averaged 6,000 orders a minute, and more than 450,000 lunch orders were filled. However, many users did not end up receiving their food after spending money, as numerous restaurants were unable to deal with the unexpected and dramatic influx of orders.

The spokesperson told The Guardian that Grubhub “gave advance notice to all restaurants in our network, which included multiple forms of communications across email and in-platform …even with that preparation, no one could anticipate the level of demand and unfortunately that caused strain on some restaurants.”

However, Fee Bakhtiar, general manager at Jajaja Mexicana, told The Guardian that neither she nor the other managers at any of the restaurant’s NYC locations were notified of this promotion. Full Story

Related: Everytable to Open in NYC; Big Apple Bites: The Hugh