Food for thought: Delivery services cut out the middleman

Rachel Strickland | Staff Photographer Amazon Prime Pantry is just one of many services that will deliver food right here to campus.
Rachel Strickland | Staff Photographer
Amazon Prime Pantry is just one of many services that will deliver food right here to campus.

By Sean Spencer | Staff Writer

Everyone gets lazy at some point, especially college students. Or maybe you were up all day preoccupied and didn’t quench your hunger. Thankfully, there are companies out there who help us in our time of apathy and appetite.

In Pittsburgh, there are options available for students to be delivered restaurant quality food, groceries, and even clothes through a middleman.

Grubhub is an online and mobile food ordering company and is available to the Pittsburgh area.

Your total is calculated through a small fee which is between 5 cents to $5 based off where you order from, multiplied by the amount of money spent on food, which ranges from having a non-minimum amount to $20.

Grubhub offers seventy four restaurants with a variety of food choices besides pizza that can be delivered to campus. Indian, Mexican, Italian and Asian food all offered through this delivery service.

Postmates is another delivery service offered in Pittsburgh. This service offers eighty restaurants and businesses for delivery. Postmates takes the idea further by having clothes delivered to you from American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. Types of food services can range from Mcdonalds, Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks and even The Milkshake Factory.

Postmates delivery fees range from $5 to $10.

However with Postmates Plus, you can order from up to twenty restaurants — depending on hours of availability — with the small delivery fee of $3.99. Restaurants include Wingstop, El Burro and The Pittsburgh Juice Company.

Yelp has their own delivery service called Eat24. They offer up to one hundred thirteen restaurants for delivery to campus. The minimum fee for amount of food purchased is between $0 at Pita Pit, all the way up to $50 at Istanbul Sofra. Their delivery fees range from $0 to $8 with a variety of foods you can order from pizza, asian and american food.  

The delivery fee stays the same no matter how much food you order from the same place. However, if you order food from 2 different places, you will be charged delivery fees for both places.

All of these delivery services can be available to you through downloading their respective apps to your phone or going on to their websites and create your order. Delivery usually takes about an hour.

To use these services, you first select where and what you want to eat. Then you submit your order and the food is picked up and delivered to you from a courier.

You can even have groceries delivered to your dorm.

Best Grocery Delivery operates out of Pittsburgh in all areas inside the city. There is a $50 limit for your purchases and all orders must be received by 8 p.m. for next day delivery.

It costs $12.50 for next day delivery and for any order over $200, the delivery fee becomes 15 percent of the order.

This service offers almost 10,000 products to choose from and all items come from Giant Eagle, Walmart and Sam’s Club. The groceries are delivered in refrigerated vans.

All the consumer has to is register your name and delivery address on the website, shop for your groceries and check out. They also offer call-in orders.

All of these delivery service are available to Duquesne from businesses within 5 miles of campus.

Even Amazon is getting in on the action. Prime Pantry is an online store where you can buy groceries and household products, then have them shipped to your doorstep within 4 days with a flat delivery fee of $5.99 per box.

In order to use Amazon Prime Pantry, you have to be Prime member.  Being a member gives you benefits to Prime Pantry’s weekly deals, exclusive coupons and free shipping promotions.