Stories
Owner profiles from around the state, plus plain-English explainers on online ordering and what delivery apps really cost.
It's commission-free, it lives on your website, and 39 Wasatch Front independents use it as their only ordering channel. But whose channel is it? I read the merchant terms so you don't have to.
33 of Ogden's 75 independent restaurants — 44% — can't take an online order of their own, and they average over 1,200 Google reviews each. The city-level data.
Orem has the worst direct-ordering rate of any major Wasatch Front city: 55% of its independents can't take an online order — and they're the most-reviewed invisible restaurants in the corridor.
27 of Provo's 59 independent restaurants can't take an online order of their own — and at 4.5 stars average, they're the highest-rated invisible restaurants on the Wasatch Front.
Salt Lake has the best direct-ordering rate on the Wasatch Front — and still, 61 of its 148 independents can't take an online order of their own. A city-level cut of the data.
26 of Sandy's 51 independent restaurants — 51% — can't take an online order of their own, and they average nearly 1,500 Google reviews each. The city-level data.
Half of West Valley City's 64 independent restaurants can't take an online order of their own — in the most international dining city on the Wasatch Front. The city-level data.
DoorDash takes $3.75 to $7.50. Uber Eats takes $5.00 to $7.50 — and just raised its rates. Plateful takes $1.00. The same taco order, line by line, with sources.
Of 855 Wasatch Front independents, 345 run their own online ordering. Toast powers 134 of them. Here's the whole vendor map — and the pattern in who gets ordering tech and who doesn't.
About 60% of restaurant revenue comes from repeat guests. On the delivery apps, those are exactly the orders you pay full marketplace rates for — from customers you're never allowed to know.
I catalogued the independent restaurants of the Wasatch Front — 855 of them, across 50 cities. More than half have no way to take an online order of their own. Here's the data.
I couldn't order dinner from a restaurant that had no website. That small annoyance turned into a question, then an idea, then a company.