5 tips from Grubhub for building a successful delivery menu

According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry Report, 68% of surveyed adults reported they are more likely to purchase takeout or delivery now than before the pandemic. 

Today delivery and takeout is critical component of any restaurant’s business model. 

To succeed at delivery, you must create a successful takeout and delivery menu that gets customers excited–while ensuring whatever they order will be as delicious as you intended and portrayed it to be on your menu. 

To help you get started, the delivery experts at Grubhub are sharing five tips for building a successful delivery menu. 

1. Design a delivery menu that’s delivery friendly

Branding and consistency are essential, so you don’t want your delivery menu to be too much of a departure from your in-house version. That said, some dishes that are successful on-premise won’t necessarily travel well.

Anything that should be served in the dish it’s cooked in, such as crème Brulee or potatoes gratin, can be tricky to unmold and package for delivery without drastically affecting presentation. 

The same goes for composed dishes and delicate ingredients such as foie gras, stacked salads, and egg-yolk ravioli.

That’s why it’s important to analyze your menu and determine which items will travel well and which are best for on-site dining. 

2. When designing your delivery menu always keep food temperature in mind  

Delivery times present a real challenge for both hot and cold dishes.

Some menu items will keep cooking while they’re en route to their final destination. Other dishes are ruined if they arrive at a different temperature than the chef intended or the customer expected. 

Popular items like steaks and burgers will continue cooking during transit and can majorly impact the integrity of your dish. Additionally, raw fish dishes that are cooked by marinating in citruses, such as ceviche and certain types of sushi, will continue to cook if left in contact with the citric acid for too long. 

When preparing your delivery menu, it’s important to keep food temperature in mind, but also how the delivery experience will help maintain the proper temperature. At Grubhub, we equip all of our delivery drivers with insulated delivery bags to ensure that dishes maintain their appropriate temperature during transit. 

3.  Use special packaging to keep fried foods crispy

French fries. Sweet and sour chicken. Onion rings. Nachos. Potato samosas. Soft-shell crab sandwiches. These crispy-crunchy dishes are absolutely delicious when they’re prepared correctly, but lots can happen to veggie tempura and mozzarella sticks between your kitchen and your customer’s doorstep.

To make sure your fried foods remain crispy during delivery, we recommend using vented containers, which will help prevent accidental steaming. 

4.  Keep sauces, dressings, and dips on the side 

It’s important that you place sauce and dressing in separate containers. For example, when preparing salads for delivery, you should use condiment cups and place the salad dressing on the side. 

The guacamole that goes with your carne asada tacos, the strawberry coulis for the top of your NY-style cheesecake, cream cheese for a toasted bagel — put it all in condiment cups and let customers take control of the finishing touches.

5. Make sure your deliveries arrive on time to your customer

Crafting the perfect delivery menu is just the first step to succeeding with delivery and takeout. It’s important that you also find the right delivery partner who can ensure your orders arrive on time– every time. 

With our latest feature, the Grubhub Guarantee, we protect our restaurant partners’ reputation by going above and beyond to give your customers the best delivery experience. If any order placed on our platform does not arrive on time or at the best price, we will compensate the diner with Grubhub Guarantee Perks, which are 100% funded by Grubhub. 

Simplify delivery with Grubhub and Clover by your side 

With Grubhub, you can trust that once a delivery order is out of your hands, it will be delivered on time to your customer by a professional delivery driver equipped with an insulated delivery bag. 

But that’s not all– Grubhub now integrates seamlessly with Clover POS, making it easier to process your orders and grow your delivery business. 

It’s easy to get started. First, sign in to your Clover Dashboard to integrate your existing Grubhub account into Clover. Next, a Grubhub representative will contact you to verify your information and set you up on the Grubhub Marketplace, where you can build your menu using your Clover inventory items. If you don’t already have a Grubhub account, you can set one up as part of the sign-up process in the Clover Dashboard.

Once your Grubhub Marketplace listing is live, Grubhub customers will find your restaurant on the Grubhub app, place an order, and pay. The order is then fired to your kitchen through your Clover POS.

To learn more about the Grubhub Clover integration, please visit Clover’s Help Center.

About Grubhub 

Grubhub is part of Just Eat Takeaway.com (LSE: JET, AMS: TKWY, NASDAQ: GRUB), a leading global online food delivery marketplace. Dedicated to connecting more than 33 million diners with the food they love from their favorite local restaurants, Grubhub elevates food ordering through innovative restaurant technology, easy-to-use platforms and an improved delivery experience. Grubhub features more than 300,000 restaurant partners in over 4,000 U.S. cities.

To learn more about Grubhub for Restaurants, please visit get.grubhub.com.

Editorial Team

Clover partner solutions, Full Service Restaurants (FSR), Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), Run your business

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