Only an idiot wouldn't have known that this would go wrong.... free lunch.... in NYC?
Grubhub sparks chaos after its offer of a free lunch for the whole of New York City crashes the system and leaves countless customers hungry
Grubhub received thousands of complaints on May 17 after its free lunch promotion overwhelmed New York restaurants.
Grubhub has countless hungry New Yorkers to answer to after its ambitious ploy to give the city a free lunch backfired.
The delivery app launched a promotion on Tuesday offering users in New York City a free lunch up to the value of $15 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
However, the surge in demand left restaurants overwhelmed, with the app reportedly receiving thousands of orders per minute, meaning countless orders were delivered hours late or never arrived at all.
Grubhub told BuzzFeed News that it had been averaging 6,000 orders a minute during the three-hour window.
Furious customers took to social media to vent their frustration, with many saying their food was never delivered or arrived hours after they placed their order. Others said they couldn’t access the promotion because inundated eateries had switched off their service on the platform.
A spokesperson for Grubhub told Fortune on Wednesday that during the promotion, there had been “an initial, temporary backlog due to an abundance of preorders and overwhelming demand at the beginning,” but the company said the issue was quickly fixed.
“To help businesses prepare for yesterday’s promotion, we gave advance notice to all restaurants in our network, which included multiple forms of communication,” the spokesperson said. “Additionally, we increased driver incentives to help support demand.”
Grubhub told Fortune that more than 450,000 orders connected to the promotion were fulfilled on Tuesday.
“While, unfortunately, some restaurants did experience a strain—which we will continue to optimize to help mitigate in the future—thousands of restaurants benefited from this lunchtime boost,” the spokesperson said.
However, claims have been swirling that Grubhub failed to tell food outlets about the promo in advance, and that there were not enough delivery drivers on the road to pick up the orders.
A manager at Ukrainian restaurant Veselka in New York’s East Village told the Daily Mail that Grubhub didn’t give them a heads-up about the promotion.
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Grubhub free lunch offer in New York CIty backfires spectacularly | Fortune
Grubhub sparks chaos after its offer of a free lunch for the whole of New York City crashes the system and leaves countless customers hungry
Grubhub received thousands of complaints on May 17 after its free lunch promotion overwhelmed New York restaurants.
Grubhub has countless hungry New Yorkers to answer to after its ambitious ploy to give the city a free lunch backfired.
The delivery app launched a promotion on Tuesday offering users in New York City a free lunch up to the value of $15 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
However, the surge in demand left restaurants overwhelmed, with the app reportedly receiving thousands of orders per minute, meaning countless orders were delivered hours late or never arrived at all.
Grubhub told BuzzFeed News that it had been averaging 6,000 orders a minute during the three-hour window.
Furious customers took to social media to vent their frustration, with many saying their food was never delivered or arrived hours after they placed their order. Others said they couldn’t access the promotion because inundated eateries had switched off their service on the platform.
A spokesperson for Grubhub told Fortune on Wednesday that during the promotion, there had been “an initial, temporary backlog due to an abundance of preorders and overwhelming demand at the beginning,” but the company said the issue was quickly fixed.
“To help businesses prepare for yesterday’s promotion, we gave advance notice to all restaurants in our network, which included multiple forms of communication,” the spokesperson said. “Additionally, we increased driver incentives to help support demand.”
Grubhub told Fortune that more than 450,000 orders connected to the promotion were fulfilled on Tuesday.
“While, unfortunately, some restaurants did experience a strain—which we will continue to optimize to help mitigate in the future—thousands of restaurants benefited from this lunchtime boost,” the spokesperson said.
However, claims have been swirling that Grubhub failed to tell food outlets about the promo in advance, and that there were not enough delivery drivers on the road to pick up the orders.
A manager at Ukrainian restaurant Veselka in New York’s East Village told the Daily Mail that Grubhub didn’t give them a heads-up about the promotion.
CONTINUED:
Grubhub free lunch offer in New York CIty backfires spectacularly | Fortune
