New province wide Skip the Dishes fee puts some local restaurants in hot water

A new province-wide Skip the Dishes fee is leaving customers and restaurant owners in a pickle as the food delivery app has implemented a 99 cent delivery fee for BC customers.

This comes not long after Interim Oppositional Leader Shirley Bond introduced a ‘Food and Beverage Delivery Fees Cap Act’ to BC’s Legislature, capping food delivery service fees BC to 15%, which was implemented at the end of December.

A notification pops up on the app that reads, “The province of British Columbia has temporarily capped the fees that Skip can charge local restaurants. To continue to provide you with the food you love from your favourite restaurants while providing earring opportunities for independently contracted couriers, you will now see a charge added to all orders in B.C. until the order is lifted.”

The Snooze Bar and Ambrosia Greek Taverna are local virtual restaurants, meaning they’re operated out of a commercial kitchen but have no physical dining space.

“With Skip passing on this delivery fee directly to the customer is just going to reduce the bottom line number of users on the app which really hurts the customer base of restaurants like Ambrosia or Snooze,” explained Dustin Hedstrom, Snooze Bar Spokesperson and Executive Chef of Prestige Hotel.

He says delivery apps are crucial for them because the virtual restaurants don’t have signs or visible advertisements outside of social media.

“Being that we’re digital restaurants, we’re really heavily dependant on our digital platforms, to get our name out there” added Hedstrom.

He also explained that there’s already been a decrease in users on the app and expects the delivery service to lose about 15% of all BC users.

According to Hedstrom, the pandemic has made the food-delivery app very busy, and this fee capitalizes on the increase in demand while taking a toll on smaller local restaurants.

Most restaurants still take take-out orders over the phone, including Snooze Bar and Ambrosia Greek Taverna, however, Hedstrom explained it doesn’t make up for the lost customer base from the app.

“If everybody decides to just phone in takeout orders and boycott the app, people are probably going to just order to the places most familiar to them, which means corporate restaurants will probably see a bit of a boom but local places are going to be forgotten about because just being on the Skip platform is how we get our name out there” he added.

Customers can still keep the app downloaded on their mobile device and support local businesses like Snooze Bar by simply choosing a restaurant through the app but ordering over the phone.