Due the modern landscape of food delivery applications such as UberEats, GrubHub, and Doordash, ordering food to ones house has never been as easy for the consumer, and as profitable for the business owners. The pandemic caused the industry to spike massively, but the quality and convenience of the operating systems laid the groundwork for this kind of boost to be possible.

Because of the uptick in people ordering in from their phones, there have been new niche apps hitting the market that specialize in a specific type of food item. “Slice” for example is strictly for pizza, and independent pizza shops can sign up and begin to sell their food to people who seek out pizza the most. “HungryPanda” does a similar thing but with Chinese food.

This industry has built growing pressure on the traditional restaurants on these applications, as so called “dark kitchens” (restaurants who only sell food online), are able to cut overhead costs massively, and as a result get featured higher on the suggestion tab.

Restaurants that choose to continue to sell food both online and in person are going to have increase their delivery costs, according to people such as Chipotle’s chief financial officer, Jack Hartung. “It’s no surprise that delivery comes with an added cost. Our belief has been that’s a premium experience from a convenience standpoint. We want to make sure that channel covers the cost.”