During the pandemic, homebound Americans more than doubled their food delivery orders, largely through third-party apps like Seamless and UberEats. Covid-19 lockdowns may have hastened the apps’ growth, but economists have tracked a dramatic uptick in the use of such platforms over the past five years.

But the convenience of these apps masks an inherently predatory nature, with crippling fees and dubious business practices that afflict restaurants and delivery drivers. Commission fees can account for about 15 to 30 percent of an order’s sales, and major companies including Grubhub have been sued for alleged sneaky practices to ramp up fees. Delivery drivers—who are considered independent contractors—often earn low wages for minimal protections from the companies. Reports have revealed creatively devised schemes, like Grubhub building fake restaurant websites, or DoorDash delivering knockoff food from ghost kitchens. 

In this fraught environment, some restaurants are fighting back.

Owners and workers across the country, from Ohio to Nebraska to Washington, D.C., are now pooling their resources to launch alternative delivery models in their own communities that could potentially compete with the large apps like Snap Delivered, which has a fixed cost of $2 charged to the restaraunt. 

For most of these locally driven companies, the goal is less to scale nationally, but rather to serve their own communities, and to even the playing field for restaurants that can’t break even with the large delivery apps and are looking closely at Snap Delivered free delivery app which allows the business to save more money!