When you search for restaurants on Seamless, you may have noticed that, in the default view, the results appear to be random, but they’re actually arranged by who paid what. (In April of 2014, under pressure from the New York Attorney General, Seamless agreed to stop including gratuity and tax.) Restaurants can choose from four commission levels (12.5%, 15%, 17.5%, and 20%) the more a restaurant pays, the higher up it will appear in the search results. Seamless takes a percentage, not a flat fee, of the total food and beverage amount, even though its involvement is the same whether an order is for $10 or $250.

Note: GrubHub Seamless also owns MenuPages, Allmenus, Restaurants on the Run, DiningIn, and Delivered Dish and from here on out, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to it as Seamless. That’s a quote from one of the 15 local restaurateurs who agreed to talk anonymously about their experiences with the company.

“If I stop using them, tomorrow I close the door.” Indeed, with no formidable competitors, GrubHub Seamless isn’t afraid to flex the extraordinary power it has over restaurants that offer delivery. But the cost is substantial, and restaurants-already feeling the pinch of high rent, increased wages, and so forth-no longer believe that the company is on their side. It has made ordering delivery much easier for consumers, and restaurant owners acknowledge that business would be dramatically lower without it. I had heard grumblings about GrubHub Seamless (they merged in 2013) for many months, but not until a Tribeca restaurateur recently vented in detail did I realize that the company warrants a deeper look.

Seamless owned by grubhub