delivery

Dear PoPville – Anyone Else Experiencing Issues with Tipping Delivery Drivers?

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user DooleyPhoto

“Dear PoPville,

A couple people I know have been ordering food for delivery around the district and paying with a credit card. They have been adding a few extra dollars for the tip before the card is charged to not mess with having cash, adding more to the bill afterwards, etc. Then the delivery driver comes to your home and is looking for a tip, even though you already paid one. He will just say you didn’t pay a tip, you need to pay a tip, almost aggressively.

I thought this was ridiculous and petty when I first heard… until it happened to me. Twice.

I dont know what it is, but twice now I have ordered delivery, paid a tip beforehand, and then gotten the driver to almost heckle me to the point of tipping him. Now, I tip pretty well, and even if it is only a few dollars, why would you want to tip twice? Are these drivers hustling large number of people out of tips, and getting twice the amount?

I would assume much of this happens last at night when people are more inebriated and most likely forget they already paid a tip, or just say forget it and pay it anyway. But! I thought this was something to bring to your attention. I definitely want to hear if this has happened to other people, especially late at night and see if it is a growing hustle in DC. It just seemed to me, and the others who it had happened to, that the drivers knew they had gotten a tip and were so adamant about no tip, it almost seemed suspicious. Maybe I am over-thinking heavily, but wanted to know what you think.”

New Delivery Options – Mama Chuy and Kushi

By Prince Of Petworth

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Thanks to those who passed on emails about these two new delivery options.

“Mama Chuy DC authentic Mexican Restaurant located at 2620 Georgia Ave NW is now offering delivery. Starting tomorrow Fri. January 10, 2014 our delivery hours are 12noon-10:30pm Monday- Saturday, 1.5 mile radius, $20 min & $2.50 delivery fee. Call us @ 202-667-6262 (202-667-MAMA) visit us at mamachuydc.com for all of our menus.”

kushi

Kushi is located at 465 K Street, NW. You can see the menu and delivery radius below:

Kushi_Delivery_menu

Kushi_delivery_menu cont.

Friday Question of the Day – What are the Best Delivery Options in DC?

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user Joe in DC

A couple years ago we spoke about the best pizza delivery options in DC. But for today I want to know what are your favorite non-pizza delivery options? Lately my favorite delivery is Greek Spot at 11th and U St, NW. Tons of restaurants have been opening up the last few years – any of them have a good delivery option? In addition to your overall favorite – what are the favorite fastest options too? And a brief side note – how much do you/should you tip the delivery guy?

Friday Question of the Day – Delivery recommendations? (reader request)

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user fromcaliw/love

Keeping with fun FQotD for the month of August:

“Dear PoPville,

I was hoping that the PoP community would be a good place to survey people on where they like to get delivery from? I love going out to DC and trying all the different restaurants here, but when it comes to getting good delivery for a lazy evening, I have few ideas. I live in the Columbia Heights area and my boyfriend is in Adams Morgan, so I’m particularly interested in restaurants that would deliver to those areas. Some of my favorites are DC Noodles, Rice and Meiwah, but there just have to be more! And I’m not talking the standard Manny & Olga’s Pizza delivery. Any suggestions out there? And I know many places do takeout, but I’m really looking for delivery ideas.”

We talked about good pizza delivery options here. But I’d also be curious to hear about other delivery options. In addition to the name of the restaurant please also say what neighborhood(s) they deliver to. I’ve been pretty happy with Sala Thai delivery to Petworth.

So for the Friday Question of the Day – what’s your favorite delivery option?

Where is the Best Delivery Pizza in DC?

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoP,

Have you ever done a blog topic on the best delivered pizza in the various neighborhoods? We have not found a
pizza yet (U St, NW), and now think our frozen pizzas are actually better than any of the doughy undercooked messes we get delivered.”

We talk about pizza a lot and that partly because I probably eat pizza 3 times a week… Anyway, delivery pizza is an important question. Obviously a lot is going to depend on what neighborhood you live in. I know Moroni & Bros. pizza delivers to the Petworth area and Pete’s delivers to Columbia Heights but what are the best delivery options for the rest of DC?

For the U St area I know some folks are fans of Homemade Pizza but to be honest I’m not sure they deliver.

If you make recommendations please let us know what neighborhood/area they deliver to.

PoP Pho Patrol – Pho 14 Delivery Coming Soon

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoP,

Can you confirm that Pho 14 will start offering delivery next month? This will ALMOST make up for moving outside the Tono Sushi delivery range.”

I stopped by Pho 14, located at 1436 Park Rd. NW, and sadly delivery will not be coming until November. It was supposed to come in October but there was some difficulty with staffing. They think they will hire someone start delivery sometime in November. And for the real question – what is the delivery radius? 3 miles! That should hook a lot of us up.

In other Pho news, the new spot, possibly to be names Pho Viet, opening up at 3515 14th Street, NW still looks a few weeks away from opening. Stay tuned on both fronts.

Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza Starts Delivery Tuesday

By Prince Of Petworth

When we talked about this last week the delivery stopped at Sherman. But thanks to your comments the initial delivery area has been expanded. From an email:

“Taking feedback from the comments section on PoP and some good Twitter traffic into consideration, we’ve decided to move the boundary on the east side of the initial delivery area to Georgia Avenue, not Sherman. This will allow us to incorporate the residential side streets between Ga and Sherman.

Also, there’s a $20 minimum on delivery orders.

We’re going to be taking the first week very much day by day. Co-owner and Petworth resident Joel Mehr will be taking all the calls, and using his judgment hour-by-hour as to whether the delivery staff can effectively deliver within the initial delivery area or not. If it’s slow, deliveries outside the area may be accepted; if it’s slammed, the area may need to be limited temporarily to ease the rush and ensure good service.

We’ll keep you posted. We’ll be tweeting as much as we can during the first week to keep things up to date. http://twitter.com/petes_newhaven

Thanks, PoP readers.”

Pete’s Apizza to Start Delivery July 7th!

By Prince Of Petworth

Back in mid June I mentioned Pete’s Apizza was going to start delivery soon. Well, soon is July 7th. Very good news!

From an email:

“Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza will start delivering on Tuesday, July 7, at 5PM. Delivery hours will be from 5 to close (10PM Sunday through Thursday, 11PM Friday and Saturday).

Delivery area will be limited for an initial period while the store gets acclimated to the pace and scope of deliveries. We plan to start off with the following boundaries:

16th Street to the west
Upshur Street to the north
Georgia Avenue to New Hampshire Avenue to Sherman Avenue to the east
U Street to the south.

Depending on the situation, we are reserving the right to limit delivery area further, if we find during our initial break-in period that we are having difficulty maintaining delivery times and customer satisfaction. This is the first time we have offered the service, so we are not sure how long it will take to get acclimated to a whole new system. Every driver on day one will be on their first day on the job, week one, first week on the job, etc. Hopefully, it will launch smoothly, but it is a new venture.

After the initial period, it is our hope to extend the delivery area further into Petworth, since we get a lot of in-store customers from Petworth, and Joel and Alicia, two of the co-owners, live in the neighborhood.

Because we are a restaurant first and foremost, and not primarily a delivery place, we will be charging $3 per address for delivery.

Anyone up there have a really nice little crap car they want to sell for $400 or so? I’ve been looking at older Saturns, Corollas, Sentras and Civics. I delivered pizza all through high school and a couple summers in college. I might be doing it again! But I won’t kill my trusty old Volvo wagon doing it.”

Pete’s Apizza – Starting Delivery Soon

By Prince Of Petworth

A reader tipped me off to a City Paper classified ad:

“Delivery Driver Wanted for Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza in Columbia Heights. Apply at 1400 Irving St NW ste 103 Monday-Friday between 3-5pm.”

I’m always glad to hear about more delivery options! I’m guessing they’ll deliver to CH, Petworth, Mt. Pleasant, Adams Morgan, Park View and Shaw but I’ll have to find out the exact boundaries.

Dear PoP – What Are Your Experiences Ordering Delivery?

By Prince Of Petworth

“Not to start another argument about the best Chinese in the city, but last night we tried to order from Great Wall Szechuan House and were told we live too far away. The woman on the phone did not seem moved by the fact that they did deliver to us just a few weeks ago. Now, we are too far. We actually live in Park View, closer to them than Petworth and I know they have delivered to Petworthians. Did we not tip well enough last time? Are they anti-Park View? Was I just hungry and frustrated?

I don’t want to miss my chance at enjoying their spicy eggplant on my couch…”

I think it probably depends on the night. Maybe they were super busy last night but not a couple of weeks ago. I definitely find ordering delivery a frustrating process. Kind of like catching a cab home. Seemingly a bit arbitrary for sure. Some cabbies have no problems taking me home and some bolt like they’ve seen the devil himself. As for your experience, I’d just try them again another night. If they still don’t deliver you may want to go down to the store itself and introduce yourself. Kill ’em with kindness.

What do you guys think – have you had experiences ordering delivery where they deliver one night but not the other?

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