It was Sunday evening a few weeks ago and after a day lounging by the fire, watching Shrek a couple of times and doing not very much else, my family was in lazy mode. Neither the idea of cooking dinner versus getting dressed to go out and get food appealed to us so decided to order in.
If you live in Boston then you know that almost no restaurants deliver. It's a really strange local phenomenon. Coming from Montreal, where you could order breakfast and it would show up any time of the day or night, I'm still not accustomed to the idea that restaurants actually make people come in to get food. So when restaurant delivery services started popping up a few years ago, I was happy to know that the option existed, but I never really took advantage of it simply because the prices of the food were so inflated, that coupled with the tax and delivery charge, plus gratuity, a sushi dinner for two could climb well past the $100 mark without even breaking a sweat.
But on that Sunday, a few weeks ago, I was determined to find a way to make it work.
I started playing around on the Internet and found two sites - one that does lots of advertising and that I'm familiar with (I may have used it once or twice in the past), and another that I hadn't heard of called Foodler. Being the kind of person that I am, I looked at the menu for the restaurant I wanted (it was on both sites) and compared pricing. It was cheaper on Foodler. My almost $100 order on the other site, came to about $75 on Foodler, including tax and delivery. While still not cheap for sushi for three people (two of whom are under 4 feet tall), it beat cooking and the cost wasn't going to break the bank.
I ordered again from Foodler a week later during our only snowstorm of the year. And even with the weather, the food came pretty fast, and was fresh when it arrived.
Other differences I've noticed with Foodler is that delivery costs differ from restaurant to restaurant, with some options having no charge at all. I've seen discounts rights there on the site - no scouring the web for coupons, etc. And really, the service was great.
For the moment, Foodler is available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Miami, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, but that list seems to be growing pretty quickly. Check it out next time you're too lazy to cook, too!
I received Foodler bucks to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own.
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