Chapel St restaurants push back against food delivery services

Restaurants on Melbourne’s Chapel St are taking a stand against food delivery services like UberEats and Deliveroo in an effort to keep the bustling strip alive.

The fight against delivery apps is being spearheaded by the Chapel St Precinct Association in effort to counter the slump in trade that is seeing small businesses close their doors.

Stonnington Mayor Steve Stefanopoulos said the margins charged by food delivery apps is “the real killer”.

“The margin can be up to 35 per cent, which is just extraordinary,” he told the Herald Sun.

Japanese restaurant and bar Tokosan is one the venues that took a stand against food delivery services, with owner Matt Yazbek saying they “kicked all the delivery apps because the quality is just not there”.

“The food which arrives at people’s doors doesn’t reflect our business,” he told the Herald Sun.

“It’s a damage to our reputation. It’s not Uber Eats that gets slammed if the food arrives to someone’s house contaminated, or not as good as what they expected.

“It’s a control issue as well as the bottom line.”

Chapel St Precinct manager Chrissie Maus said it was “almost impossible for Australian restaurants to provide their delivered meals without inflating prices, reducing portion sizes or leaving out key ingredients in order to cut costs”.

Their campaign “Get off the couch, Life’s Waiting on Chapel” has launched this week.

“Put simply the businesses cannot survive forever on such thin margins,” she said. “If we don’t get back out and dine in, before we know it our favourites may be gone forever.”

Sheridan Randall, 5^th September 2019