![]() “The order is the result of our marketing efforts.” "It is important to keep in mind that we are a marketing platform and, in almost all of these cases, the diner would not have discovered or placed an order with this restaurant without our platform,” Brendan Lewis, a spokesperson for Grubhub, told me in an email. She deferred further questions to Grubhub. “It is our understanding that Grubhub has marketing agreements with some restaurants that allow Grubhub to utilize referral numbers on third party partner sites like Yelp,” a spokesperson for Yelp said in an email. Grubhub says it provides phone numbers for restaurants that sign up for marketing but not delivery in order to capture all orders that could be eligible for its fees. It also offers a physical delivery service, which costs restaurants another 10 percent. Grubhub offers a “marketing” service to restaurants, which includes being listed on the Grubhub platform, for between 15 percent and 20 percent of each order total. To not have all the practices clearly spoken about and understood by the businesses is really scary in my eyes.” “So many of these practices make it hard to trust the companies. “We're working with these companies to help generate orders, but so many times, we're put in a position where we need to compete against them to get access to our customers,” he said. Robert Guarino, CEO of the Manhattan restaurant group 5 Napkin Burger and a board member at the New York City Hospitality Alliance, was also not aware that Grubhub numbers were showing up in Yelp for two of his four restaurants. “It’s not fair because this is our customer who called directly into our restaurant,” he said. Mohammad Zaman, an owner of Afghan Kabab and Grill House in Brooklyn, insisted the phone number that showed up in Yelp was a mistake until a call placed to the number rang at his desk. Restaurant owners may not be aware of the change. “It’s not fair because this is our customer who called directly into our restaurant. But Yelp began prompting customers to call Grubhub phone numbers in October 2018 after the two companies announced a “long-term partnership.” Yelp has historically functioned like an enhanced Yellow Pages, listing direct phone numbers for restaurants along with photos, information about the space, menus, and user reviews. ![]()
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