ChowNow: Local Food Ordering 4+

I prefer to use ChowNow over any other delivery app because more of the money goes to the restaurant and it’s delivered by employees, but about 90% of the time I place an order I have to call the restaurant 15-20 minutes after my order was supposed to be delivered, and I find out they were confused thinking an outside driver would be picking it up.

Please provide more education to restaurants that sign up to be on ChowNow, if they don’t understand that they’re supposed to be delivering the food the whole value proposition of the app disappears. I’m trying to support employees rather than the exploitative gig economy, but I would like my food to occasionally show up on time and without me calling to explain to the restaurant how ChowNow works!

Placed my first order for a local BBQ restaurant. Estimated delivery time was about 45 minutes. No problem. An hour later still no delivery. I checked my bank and my card had been charged. I called the restaurant and was told that my order had been picked up at least 30 minutes before. I live less than five minutes away. As I was hanging up the phone I received my first text update from ChowNow giving me a link to track my order. Basically told me nothing but the driver’s name. 15 minutes later still no order. I call the number on the link and the driver answers. He lies and says that he is at the restaurant right then and would be there in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later, 1:45 after placing my order my wife calls the number for the driver and he hangs up without saying anything. She calls back and no answer. I call the restaurant back and they explain the ChowNow actually collects money and sends them the order. The manager apologizes and remakes my order, even though they will not get paid for the second order. Meanwhile it has been over 2 hours since placing my order and paying a delivery fee and tip. I end up going to get my remade order. The original order never showed up. I will never do business with ChowNow again.

I ordered food through this app. I ordered it for pick up and meant to order for delivery. Realizing my mistake, I called customer service. They said, “let me see if I can get someone from the restaurant to deliver it because Doordash can't take the order number.” I know the restaurant can't deliver. If they did deliver, I would call them and have them deliver. If I reorder, they could get doordash to deliver the food, but that I would have to pay for both orders because the food from the first order was made.

I can call the restaurant, and they can tell me they don't deliver. I can place an order on doordash. It wasn't bad enough that even the concept of this company is a useless waste of human thought. Let's talk about the service. After not finding any place in the app to reach customer service, I searched it on google. After holding for 15 minutes, I got a rude and unapologetic representative who had no concern for this issue whatsoever. He had the gall to blame the restaurant for not having the staff to deliver the food. Zero stars for this platform. Zero stars for the guy working there. Do not use this app, they are THE third party that no one wants.