Reading-based delivery company leaves Lancaster temporarily to update menus, prices [update] | Local Business
Within 12 hours of LNP | LancasterOnline posting a story about a delivery service’s business practices upsetting some local restaurant owners, Local Dudes Delivery ended service here temporarily in order fix its listings.
Local Dudes, a Reading-based third-party delivery company, had recently increased its offerings to more than 50 Lancaster County restaurants without first contacting the restaurants. Numerous restaurant owners and managers claimed that Local Dudes had not only added their menus to the Local Dudes site, but that the menus were often outdated and with inflated prices. Some customers who ordered from the outdated menus were later told by Local Dudes that the restaurants did not have the supplies to make the food.
The story detailing these issues posted on LancasterOnline in the early morning hours of Wednesday, and by that evening, the Lancaster County listings on the Local Dudes website were gone. As of Thursday afternoon, a visitor to the Local Dudes website attempting to enter a Lancaster County address was greeted with a message saying “We’re sorry, but the address you entered is outside of our service area.”
Zachary Kern, owner of Local Dudes, said Thursday that he told his team to deactivate restaurant listings in Lancaster County so that they could be retooled and brought up to date.
“We are highly competitive in the market” Kern said via email. “On the customer facing side, we are priced comparably to national competitors, and we are extremely competitive for restaurant partners.”
One of the restaurants with complaints about Local Dudes is American Bar & Grill in Lancaster city. Its manager, Justin Lyons, is frustrated that Local Dudes said it is halting service just temporarily. On Thursday, he wondered aloud about a lawsuit, pointing out that that he believes Local Dudes’ issues have unfairly damaged the reputations of some restaurants.
He was one of several local restaurant managers who told LNP | LancasterOnline that they had contacted Local Dudes about removing their restaurant from the delivery service’s listings but received no response.
“There’s no accountability,” Lyons said.
Asked if updated listings would be enough to consider a future formal partnership with Local Dudes,the co-owner of Valentino’s Cafe in Lancaster Township gave a quick “No.”
“You just have no control over what they do, and it’s the same problems we had with Doordash years ago,” Deb Helm said by phone. “These businesses say that we’re partnering with them when we’re not, and they just keep finding ways around it because the concept is all so new.”
Helm went on to say that, ultimately, Local Dudes and other third-party delivery services will keep looking for new ways around formal partnerships with restaurants.
“We’re already short-staffed because no one wants to work in the kitchen,” said Helm. “We’re already struggling, so why would we want to make less money on food partnering with these people?”
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