Is anyone surprised that Grubhub's ‘free’ lunch program was a disaster for restaurant workers? (via EaterNY)
“Who at Grubhub thought it was a good idea to promise 8 million New Yorkers free lunch during a 3 hr period,” one Twitter user“Between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., all hell broke loose,” says Max Zumwalt, chef of Hana House, a forthcoming Korean food hall at Borough Hall. The two-story operation, which is currently open for takeout and delivery ahead of its full opening this year, typically receives between 40 and 50 lunch orders on a normal Tuesday afternoon.
Dorien Russell, a New York City resident who works in influencer marketing, witnessed the spectacle unfold at Zest Sushi, a Japanese restaurant on the Lower East Side, around 1 p.m. on Tuesday. “It was a free for all,” he says. “There were probably six or seven people that were there for the same thing.” Orders packaged for takeout were strewn out on tables usually reserved for indoor service, he says. As he stood there waiting, the orders poured in.
Grubhub notified some restaurants of the promotion on May 9, according to emails obtained by Eater. “Get ready for a serious lunch rush,” the subject line states. A second message from the delivery company on May 12 encouraged businesses to “get ready” without actual guidance on how to do so. “We’re expecting a big boost in new customers ordering on Grubhub,” the email reads.
“It was a little bit cryptic,” says Oscar González, an owner of newly opened Mexican restaurant Cruz del Sur. There weren’t any specifics about the “free lunch” program, aside from its time frame, he says, or any data on how popular last year’s version of the program was. He asked several of his line cooks to start earlier in the day as a precaution, only for Grubhub to crash within minutes of the promotion starting.“I got everyone on alert,” González says.
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