NYC Restaurants Perfecting the Art of Food Delivery

New York City restaurants expand the delivery concept far beyond the home, reaching customers in their cars, parks, and even competing restaurants.

October 08, 2013

NEW YORK – The New York Times highlighted the enhanced notion of food delivery throughout the Big Apple, where restaurants bring food to cars, parks, or anywhere that their customers desire.

“…[T]he hungry can use cellphones and food-delivery apps to order anything their stomachs desire to the very spot where they stand,” the Times reported. “However, delivery is no longer confined to the apartment or the office — or even, for that matter, to a place with an address.”

“We go to the park all the time; we go to the beaches all the time,” said Robert Asmail, the manager at Due Fratelli Pizza in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “The police officers, they call on the corner, say, ‘We are outside patrolling.’ We go over there, we go anyplace! Doesn’t matter!”

Whether it’s bringing pizzas to a playground or a sandwich to a gym, restaurants will go out of their way to service their customers’ requests, which often leads to stressful times for delivery personnel, “who must rely on everything short of divining rods to find customers amid seas of picnickers. The lucky ones are told to look for colorful blankets or particularly loud T-shirts. Others must simply wander, and hope,” the Times wrote.

“‘Yeah, we’re in between tree one and two.’ We don’t get a very precise location,” said Danny Nasser, who works at Maya Taqueria in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, said, recalling the predicament of one deliveryman who spent nearly an hour searching Prospect Park.

Some deliveries don’t require laser-like location skills, but rather, Big City brashness. One customer at  Michelin-rated restaurant was unimpressed by the prix fixe offerings, and ordered a cheesesteak to be delivered from a nearby QSR.

The delivery person came to the chic restaurant and sought out the hostess to locate the customer, who proceeded to eat the meal outside “out of respect,” recalled the diner’s friend.

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