We tried Miami’s most popular food delivery apps. Here’s how they fared
Miami loves to dine out. But these days, the new trend is to dine in.
More than half a dozen new services promise to deliver fine-dining dishes to your door, in most cases in less than an hour. And it’s a far cry from pizza and Chinese food.
Gourmet restaurants, with the highest-quality ingredients and fussy chefs, are signing up with delivery services to reach discerning diners in new ways. From homegrown local companies like Delivery Dudes to out-of-town delivery giants such as Amazon Restaurants and UberEATS, it’s now just a matter of a couple of smartphone taps and swipes to get quality meals to your door.
“It’s something Miami was missing, so it’s interesting to see it grow so quickly,” Delivery Dudes operating partner Evan Marcus said.
Restaurant delivery is up 26 percent since 2012, and that doesn’t include pizza delivery, which is actually down 5 percent overall, according to NPD Group food-service market research.
There are mounting reasons why Miami is catching up with other big foodie cities such as New York and San Francisco. Blame gridlock, busy restaurants, stacked reservations and just convenience after a long day. And diners want lots of options.
“We’re tapping into restaurants that haven’t done delivery in the past at all,” UberEATS general manager Kasra Moshkani said.
That includes restaurants that never imagined their meals could be delivered, from gastropubs such as The Seven Dials in Coral Gables, which makes its own charcuterie and sausage, to the Design District’s Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink from James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Schwartz, who admits, “I want to control everything.”
Schwartz said he now finds himself looking at his menus at MGFD and his Harry’s Pizzeria shops and considering which new dishes will deliver well.
“Hey, man, people want what they want, when they want it,” Schwartz said.
Enter competition. Already, the San Francisco-based Caviar caved when Amazon and UberEATS came to Miami over the summer. But that leaves seven major delivery services in Miami-Dade County: Amazon Restaurants; Bite Squad; Delivery Dudes; GrubHub; Postmates; UberEATS; Yelp Eat24.
What sets them apart is both what diners and restaurants want: food that is delivered hot and fast — with reasonable delivery fees.
We ordered from each, from different parts of the county, and rated the experience.
We also built a search tool where you simply enter your address and we’ll tell you which services deliver to you (with the exception of Amazon, which would not share its delivery area. You must use their Prime Now app or desktop website).
This story was originally published November 2, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "We tried Miami’s most popular food delivery apps. Here’s how they fared."