As our approach is a little different to some other businesses, we’ve set up this FAQ about the delivery service model we use - with the goal of providing some transparency - for those who need to know!
We’re using the same model as Camon Coffee and hope this opens the door for other brunch restaurants to offer delivery - a much needed source of income for many of our friends in the industry here in Berlin.
Well, the harsh reality customers face, as Berlin is dominated by the Delivery Monolith That Shall Not Be Named, is you already do pay for delivery!
Many food-business owners have to build this cost into their pricing of dishes - which is not ideal from a business perspective, a value-of-goods perspective and it’s not really transparent in terms of where your money goes.
These are all businesses built and run by independent, hard-working people. Labour is obviously the biggest part of mobilising this service and all labour rendered should be compensated fairly.
We chose KolyMa2 because they are a local, independent enterprise and we are happy to partner with them and support their concept and efforts to provide meaningful employment to their delivery riders.
We’d rather be honest about the cost of this service, compromise a little, and ensure when you do order from us, that you get quality as good as if you were dining in-Haus - from the food to the service.
If we set a very low minimum and transparently charge the delivery costs, someone could still get a meal delivered for under €20.00. Traditionally, the idea behind higher minimum delivery amounts is that restaurants can make up the cost of the delivery service fee with volume. While this can help, it is not the whole story. For every meal prepared, there are still labor and food costs. For delivery fees not to eat into food businesses’ (already slim!) margins, delivery costs must be transparent.
But who benefits from that? The customer pays the same but assumes it is for their food. In this case we don’t recognise in full the actual cost of a human service.
There is a reason why Berlin is left with but one major service for delivery. Facing an uncertain future, small gastronomy businesses will likely need to mobilise delivery services to survive - this is what we are trying to do.
Otherwise the monolith can keep charging what it wants and expect business owners to eat the expense just to break even. Could the city that drove Google out and froze rents really being O.K. with this increasingly greedy approach to a service, which, especially in the last few months, became apparent to businesses and customers alike that Berlin needs?
Maybe it won’t. Maybe it’s not the right time. But we will try first, and make adjustments to our model if we must. The reality is that this is our new reality - we are humans who happen to own businesses - and this is the moment we can choose who we support and how we adapt.