Acquiring Food During a Pandemic

[danbrotherston]

I was going to order some takeout from Arabesque and was very surprised when I saw their webpage. 

http://www.arabesquecafekw.com/

I suspect their business is still not what it should be but they will survive the pandemic.  Restaurants that are not set up for takeout or delivery will probably fail.

Surprised good, or surprised bad?

I have ordered from them twice now, and I've been very happy, I am slightly disappointed I cannot pay online for a completely contactless drop, but their delivery people have been very good, by the time I have gotten to the door, the food, and payment terminals have been on the floor, and they have been up the hallway waiting, make the payment, pickup the food, thank the person and then close the door.

It doesn't hurt that the food is amazing too.

I am glad someone pinged this thread again, I was going to mention a few things.

First, a couple of coworkers of mine have put together a directory of really good, local food options during COVID, along with a fairly good amount of detail around their delivery and pickup options.  They cover a lot of grocery and specialty type items (they are into coffee).

https://www.heartlocal.ca/

Second, I was surprised but Longos seems to offer a pretty reasonable delivery service in KW, has anyone used it? I am thinking of trying it next.  It's interesting because their description seems to play up the "personal shopping" experience, but it sounds like they're actually fulfilling deliveries from a fulfillment centre, which makes way more sense than personal shopping.

Third, I actually tried out instacart. It is certainly a functional service, I do indeed have groceries, but frankly, it's didn't impress. Instacard does not provide the shoppers any equipment of any sort for shopping, the result is, the person delivering my order needed me to come down and help him with the twenty some bags of groceries, because apparently to instacart, providing a CART would be too much overhead for them to incur in logistics. But more generally, the "personal shopping" experience is just not something I enjoy or find valuable in anyway. I suspect some people disagree, but to me, it's a negative, and the concept of fulfilling a delivery order from grocery stores is just stupid in general, it would be far more efficient (read: cheaper, or, you could pay people a reasonable wage instead) to fulfill orders from a fulfillment centre designed for it.

Regardless, there is plenty more pandemic to try out all the different options we have available.