It was a Friday night in late September. After an insane work week, I walked into my house and found an empty fridge. I was too exhausted to head back out, plus I was in excruciating pain from what I later found out was acute sciatica. No way I was going to peel myself off the couch. So I reached for my phone. Through the delivery app Doordash, I ordered from Mealmade on Mission Street (now known as Kitava). They cook made-to-order paleo meals; I really dig their tacos.
At 7:34, the order was in: Tacos, broccoli with lemon, Brazilian cheese bread, and a lot of other stuff. I was starving.
After 45 minutes or so, I noticed that the progress notification on Doordash hadn’t changed. That was odd. The service is usually quick. Then I saw on Yelp that Mealmade was closed. Permanently. A Google search said the same.
The Doordash app only said the order was “in progress.”
So I called Mealmade and ended up talking to Brian, one of the owners. (In other words, the restaurant was definitely still in business.) He complained that Doordash had been having problems all night, and the driver had not yet shown up. Around the same time, Doordash sent a notification that my food was still being prepared — but delivery was only 10 minutes away. Perhaps the driver had a wok and a hotplate on his dashboard!
8:54 came and went. No food. Brian from Mealmade contacted me around 9:30. He hadn’t heard from Doordash, either. He finally said he would deliver my food to me personally.
Out of the blue, I heard from the Doordash driver himself: Ryan! (Not to be confused with Brian.) Ryan had good news.
But then my phone rang. Text wasn’t going to cut it. Ryan needed to talk.
Then Brian from Mealmade called back. He had some, shall we say, geographical issues.
Brian agreed. I went back to Ryan, who was still on the other line. We had a nice chat.
Ryan admitted Doordash was having problems.
An Uber driver finally dropped off my food at 10:30. I let Brian know. It wasn’t delightful, but at that point I would have eaten a sneaker.
Just as I started to dig in, Ryan called back.
We hung up. I went back to the Doordash app. No dice.
Ryan never responded.
One hour later…
From: DoorDash <support@doordash.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 11:37 PM
Subject: Your order from Mealmade has been canceled
To: — — — — — — — @gmail.com
Hi Jeremy Lacroix,
This email is to confirm your order has been cancelled and you’ve been fully refunded. Your refund should take 3–5 business days to process. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do for you!
Best,
DoorDash Team
Five days later, the world was made whole.
From: DoorDash <support@doordash.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 10:02 PM
Subject: Update to your order from Mealmade
To: — — — — — — — -@gmail.com
Hello Jeremy,
We want to apologize for the inconvenience caused by the trouble with your order. You account has been credited with $5. If you have any further issues, please feel free to contact us at www.doordash.com/help.
Sincerely,
The DoorDash Team
