How Did Food Delivery Really Start?

We all know he feeling of craving our favorite mal, and not wanting to get off the couch. Maybe its raining outside? A blizzard? A full blown pandemic that kept everyone in their homes? Whatever the reason, the market of ordering by app, and ‘food delivery’ in general, has had a storied past!

Place an order on your favorite app, and as you wait for the food to arrive, have a look at the history which made that all possible!

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Making a home cooked meal from scratch. Is hard enough. But when you have to. Get into your car and drive all the way to your food. You might as well go hungry. That’s why we invented. Delivery for. Those days when you don’t feel like cooking. Or really even. Moving.

Nothing beats. Pulling out your phone. And making. Dinner come. To you. But how did this. Whole door to door dance get started? Well, today. We are shipping out the history of food delivery. But before we get. Started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Food.

Channel and let us know in the comments. Below what other food services. You would. Like to hear about. Oh, all right. Time to stand and deliver. Let me see what the situation is. An improved by pizza. Takeout food dates back thousands. Of years all the way back to roman times.

Back then, those toga. Wearing. Ancients would swing by the Thermopolis. Or. Cook Shoppe and grab a quick bite to go. But this required movement and after a long day, watching lions. Rip men from. Limb to limb, who’s got the. Energy for that? Unfortunately, it wasn’t until much.

Later when Italy’s King Umberto the first and his. First cousin slash wife. Queen. Margarita, took a trip down to Naples in the summer of 1889. The dinner grew its first pair of legs. According to legend. During her stay. At the Palace of Capoda- monte. Queen Margarita grew tired of all.

Of the palace’s fancy French cuisine, and she wanted to instead get. Down and dirty with what the peasants were eating. So she requested that someone fetch her son pizza, which at the time was mostly. Regarded as poor people. Food unfit for royal consumption.

The palace officials pinch their noses, but obliged, and they sent a request to the then century old pizza joint pizzeria DiPietro about Sarkozy, which translates to Pietro’s Pizzeria. And that’s enough. And they ordered a famous pizza. maker. Rafael Esposito to come. Deliver three. Of his best pies. He brought with him a white.

Pizza layered with. Cheese, basil. And pork, lard. A pizza. Loaded with fried little. Baby fish, also known as whitebait, and most famously, a pizza with mozzarella, basil and tomato. The white, green and red ingredients representing the colors of the newly created Italian flag. It was love at first bite.

Queen Margherita apparently loved the pizza. So. Much, particularly the third. One, which would soon be. Named after her that royal representatives. Issued an official document to demonstrate. Her appreciation. In this document, which translated states that the three kinds of. Pizza prepared for Her Majesty were found. To be delicious. Still hangs at the.

Pizzeria. DiPietro to this day, which now operates under the name of Pizzeria Brandy. While many. Historians. Doubt that any bit of the. Story is true. Some even going so far as to question the validity of this official document. It created. A mythology around both the. Invention of Margherita. Pizza and. The broader.

Rise in pizza. Popularity. That still. Has believers to this. Day. What’s more, while no official pizza. Delivery services would start for. Some time to come, this legend. Marks the first ever. Mention of pizza. Being delivered straight. To someone’s door. No word on whether.

Rafael Esposito made it to the Queen in 30 minutes or less. Shortly thereafter. In 1890, the first known meal. Delivery service began operating in India’s rapidly. Growing Bombay. The city otherwise known today as Mumbai. At the time, Bombay did not have many. Takeout services or fast. Food joints.

And as more and more workers moved. Into the. City from all over. India, a. Need grew for. Lunchtime meals. According to legend. One banker decided. That in order to save some time. And to make sure he could. Eat food he actually wanted, he would pay for someone to swing

By his house every day to pick up a home cooked. Meal and bring it to him at work. Others soon. Took notice, and it wasn’t long. Before just about everyone wanted their own personal lunch. Courier. Enter Mahadi you have argy bargy along with his one

Man legion of lunch slinging cyclists and handcart pushers. The audio. Became the first businessman to. Formalize. This growing. Lunchtime. Delivery system, thereby becoming the first known. Business to. Offer. Any kind of food. Delivery. But collecting a complex web of. Workplaces. And home addresses, his.

Bike riding cart pushing army would swing directly by workers. Homes to pick up nice, warm, home cooked meals. And then bring the food to the workers workplaces. At specific scheduled times. But how to use deliverymen soon became known as the double wallahs, which translates to ones. Who carry the.

Box. And operations expanded rapidly. Into the 1900s. What’s more, the double wallahs are still around today in Mumbai. They’re said. To be around five. Thousand active double wallahs, all of whom collectively. Deliver two. Hundred thousand lunches on any given day. Even as other food delivery services.

Have popped up. All over. India, the double wallahs. Remain. One of the. Only major services. In town to pick. Up food directly from homes rather than restaurants. Over in the. US, take out was popularized by the late 18. Hundreds. And by the 1920s, takeout options. Were just about everywhere.

Then in 1922, along came Los Angeles’s Can Chew Café. That year, the. King’s Shoe Café put out an ad that claimed it was the only place on the West Coast making. And delivering real. Chinese dishes. While this marked. The first. Known time. That a restaurant was offering delivery within.

The US, the onset of. The Great. Depression squelched any. Further hopes for increased delivery. Options. That is until the close of the. Second World War, when Americans were suddenly a whole lot richer. And many veterans, fresh from Europe and Asia, craved foreign cuisine. Pizza, in.

Particular, which had hardly caught on in America prior to the 1940s. Was suddenly a hot commodity. Everyone wanted a taste of the czar, and soon Italian restaurants began popping. Up everywhere and offering. Pizzas to go. The first known. Food delivery service. In the US, like the King’s Café. Before it started.

In Los Angeles in the 1950s, Casa de Morais started to. Offer free delivery on all orders greater than $2 and. $0.50. With the concurrent rise of television. The Never Leave Home. Option became a quick hit, and it didn’t take. Long for other restaurants to start offering pizza delivery to.

All the while, an entirely. Different mode of. Takeout dining was on the rise. In 1947, the first ever drive thru restaurant, an upgrade to the already popular drive in restaurant opened up. It was called Red’s Giant Hamburg, and it. Became a Route 66 staple. In Springfield, Missouri, for.

Five whole decades until it was torn down in 1997. But if you want a taste of. The original drive thru. Today. There’s still. Hope. Even though the OG building was torn down in 97. Businessman David Campbell. And Greg Lott purchased the rights to the red giant Hamburg brand. And in 2019.

They rebuilt the. Restaurant from the ground up. While this reconstruction may not be located in the exact same Route 66 spot. As the original Red’s, and while it may no longer have a functioning drive thru. It does faithfully. Recreate the red’s giant Hamburg esthetic. And menu, giving today’s customers.

The opportunity to sink their teeth into a super burger or some chili cheese. Fries. But back to the 1940s. In 1948, just one year after Red Giant Hamburg opened another new restaurant, hopped aboard the drive thru train. The restaurant. Was called In and Out and its destiny would be to form.

A California cult following rivaled. Only by Jonestown. As drive thru. Options soon expanded. All across America. So did America’s appetite. For easy eating. And as more and more households came to own multiple vehicles, people increasingly wanted to put those. Cars to work. As the century moved on, delivery services. Became increasingly competitive.

Some restaurants even used the speed of their delivery as a selling point for their food. Advertising. Delivery in 30 minutes or less. Or your money. Back. 34 minutes. 4 minutes later, pizza’s free. Come on. You guys live two towns away. It’s pretty much impossible to get here in 30 minutes. Exactly.

Still, most 20th. Century deliveries were still performed. By pizza places, but all of that was set to change with the Internet. You know that thing Al. Gore invented. In 1990. Four? Pizza Hut launched one. Of the world’s first ever forays into online commerce. They called it pizza net. It was an entirely.

New way to order pizza or to order anything for that matter. So much so that some thought pizza net was just. A prank marketing. Campaign. I it was 100% real, though. And for three glorious years, customers in the Santa Cruz area. Could open up the Pizza Hut website to.

Place their orders using their. Shaky AOL dial up connections and have piping hot. Pizza delivered right. To their front door. Then just. One year later, in. 1995, an all new kind of online food. Delivery service. Launched. The worldwide waiter. Otherwise known today as Wayfair.com. Became the first ever

Major service to offer pickup and delivery from a variety of restaurants. Soon, food. Delivery services started popping. Up just. About. Everywhere, and by the 2000, most. Major pizza. Brands had followed in pizza nets, footsteps, all the while, tech. Entrepreneurs continued. Launching all new food delivery platforms, which became. Increasingly more commonplace.

With the advent of the smartphone. These services made use of all that takeout ingenuity developed. Over the course of the 20th century, providing delivery options for restaurants. That previously. Only offer dine in, drive thru and carry out the murderer’s row of app based delivery services.

Includes GrubHub, which was founded in 2000 for Postmates. Founded in 2011. DoorDash. Which opened. Its doors for dashing. In 2013, and Uber Eats looking on its open for business sign in 20. 14. 2020, Pandemic launched a heyday for food delivery. During the first. Wave of lockdowns. As the broader restaurant industry struggled to.

Stay afloat, food. Delivery platform. Saw a 70%. Profit increase. Likewise, restaurants. That adapted to this new trend had much. Greater. Success than those that had simply. Waited for. Lockdowns to ease as behaviors that were picked up in 2020 ossified. Into regular habits. Customers remain. Loyal to these. Delivery services even after.

Sit down. Options returned. Though the pace of growth among these services. Has certainly slowed. Down from. Pandemic highs. They’ve managed to keep up momentum. And to never again dip. Back beneath 2020 levels. Today, about 80% of all. Americans. Get food. Delivered at least once per month,

And about 6% of Americans eat some form of takeout for at least. One meal on any given day. What’s more, more people today report having had food delivered straight to. Home than they do sitting. Down in restaurants or picking food up for themselves.

And a whopping quarter of all Americans claim to order food delivery. More than five times in any given month averaged out evenly among the population. The typical. American orders delivery. 55 times per. Year. And spends just shy of 1008. Hundred and $50. Annually, about 600 and. $50 of which.

Consists of delivery fees, services and tips. Of all the foods that are. Delivered in America, French. Fries are the most popular, followed closely. By burgers. Tacos and pizza. And of all the. Third party companies that offer food delivery, the DoorDash umbrella. Which includes the companies. Subsidiary Caviar, is. Winning out.

For example, in December of 2023, DoorDash. Accounted for 66% of all. Food delivery sales, followed by Uber eats at 23%. For those that just can’t get enough food. Delivery, or for. Those whose wallets can’t handle. Another straight to your door order many. Of those food. Delivery services. Have even.

Started to offer monthly subscription plans. DoorDash has Dashpass. Uber Eats offers Uber one, and GrubHub. Has GrubHub plus each of which costs customers. About. Ten bucks a month. And with the ever increasing. Costs of. Food delivery, these. Subscription. Services. May be the only ways some. Can afford the convenience.

Without having to bounce a rent check. But ultimately, isn’t the convenience of. Getting burgers and fries sent right to your door. Worth spending a. Night or two in your car, especially if the radio still works. So what do you think is. Food delivery super. Convenient or just. Super pricey?

Let us know in the comments below. And while you’re at it. Check out some of. These other weird. History food videos.