Skip the Apps, Save Local Restaurants By Ordering Directly From Their Sites

Food-delivery apps have made our lives more convenient by making the great world of takeout options available with just a few taps on your phone. But they serve that convenience at a huge cost to the restaurants themselves: delivery apps eat a big chunk of a restaurant’s profits, and often find other shady ways to make money just for listing the eateries. The situation got so dire, the city council stepped in to cap delivery fees by third-party apps. 

Fortunately, restaurants themselves are sidestepping the apps altogether and setting up their own online delivery systems. One of those is Blue Park Kitchen (70 Pine Street), which is luring customers away from the big apps by offering a 10% discount when you order through the restaurant’s website directly. The restaurant says the fees are “crushing us,” but if you order from the website, “we would be forever grateful.” 

That’s the ideal way to support a local business while still getting quick delivery of Blue Park’s hearty signature bowls, with options such as blackened chicken and fennel slaw, turkey meatballs and potato and aloo tikki and roasted chickpeas. Or you could always build your own bowl out of lots of ingredients, happily knowing that the folks who lovingly make your food won’t have to fork over your money to some app developer from Silicon Valley. 

photo: Liz Clayman/Blue Park Kitchen