Winnipeg Restaurants

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

It's embarrassing that the government got involved in Skip the Dishes.

What are you referring to?

[Wpg_Guy]

Originally Posted by buzzg

What are you referring to?

The Manitoba government signed a $5.5-million agreement with Skip the Dishes in late 2015.

[EndoftheBeginning]

Saskatchewan government cancelled their $3 million grant in Nov 2016 without any money being handed over.

[h0twired]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

The Manitoba government signed a $5.5-million agreement with Skip the Dishes in late 2015.

Given the number of employees they have in Manitoba, I would say that the $5.5M has likely already been paid back.

They just brought in 60-70 people from Brazil to be a part of their software development team. You don't think that money won't make it's way back into the local ecomony either?

$5.5M is chump change on the grand scheme of things and wasn't a terrible investment for a local company that has been growing as fast as it is.

[CoryB]

I have said it elsewhere before. Instead of chasing whales (Amazon) and trying to land them we need to feed our own guppies (Skip).

[robertocarlos]

Originally Posted by h0twired

Given the number of employees they have in Manitoba, I would say that the $5.5M has likely already been paid back.

They just brought in 60-70 people from Brazil to be a part of their software development team. You don't think that money won't make it's way back into the local ecomony either?

$5.5M is chump change on the grand scheme of things and wasn't a terrible investment for a local company that has been growing as fast as it is.

Bogus argument. Why don't we all just get handed money to invest in the economy. I was going to write much worse things but thought better of it as I don't know you but I am sick of you government apologists.

[robertocarlos]

Go get a fucking loan from the bank.

[ywgwalk]

How dare the government strategically and profitably invest in local companies!

[dennis]

As long as we get more money back, I just can’t see the problem. In fact that sounds great. Making money is great, isn’t it?

[dennis]

But leaning to robertocarlos’ point of view, the government would probably just stupidly blow all the money they made ( like tearing up a newly paved road) But wouldn’t it be ideal if they actually got more revenue in return decreasing the tax burden for everyone.

[Ando]

Toronto-based Culinary Adventure Co. has added Winnipeg to its guided walking tours.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/lo...489436651.html

[rkspec]

Filipino Chain Max’s Restaurant Opening in Winnipeg Fall 2018
https://accesswinnipeg.com/2018/07/f...peg-fall-2018/

[Wolf13]

Originally Posted by EndoftheBeginning

Interesting to see Stella's put some hard numbers out there for what Skip the Dishes is charging.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...shes-1.4765317

They are dropping them mainly due to costs and said in the last year, they did $1.8 to $2.0 million in delivery sales with Skip and paid Skip 25% - 30% per order. Math says that is $600,000 paid to Skip for one year for one restaurant. Skip has 12,000 restaurants signed up in Canada.

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Ugh. That is brutal. So the model is to become indispensable to a restaurant and then ratchet up the take?

I'm actually surprised that Skip the Dishes is as popular as it is. So much of what you pay for at a restaurant is presentation, ambience, service, etc. It's fine for pizza but the idea of ordering a steak from The Keg or wherever and having it dumped into a box and sent over is just depressing IMO. I mean, I get it if you're a shut in, but I'm guessing most of the users are perfectly capable of going out to a restaurant.

Brutal? That's impressive!

Obviously ordering steak isn't a smart person's first choice, but it remains the best option for people with kids and little time, people who've had enough to drink, people who want to get laid earlier in the evening rather than later or not at all... these have all applied to me lol.

If my wife and I didn't have kids or they were just a touch older, yeah, restaurant time, but usually skipping is an impulse decision that is easier to sort out than a last minute babysitter.

It's simple... is it worth it to the restaurant? You jack up your production but don't need to hire more service, volume soars...etc. Obviously Stellas found their threshold where it's not worth it to them...

Originally Posted by EndoftheBeginning

Seems like an overcharge, but I can't guess how much it would cost to operate your own delivery service on a per order basis. Minimum wage kid working for tips plus a beat up car is probably not in the 25-30% range.

I was more shocked on the volume of sales Stella's was doing. $2 million at say $50 an order is 40,000 orders per year or 110 per day! That's a pretty good bump in sales over the eat in crowd.

Everybody is making more money, and skip played a huge role.

However, the delivery is the cheapest part of their business. They're a tech company first and foremost and pour everything into that.

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

And apparently started at 11.2% and now it is 25/30% Wow, just seems like blatant greed never mind the "ancillary" charges that are charged to the restaurant at a by the minute rate if they're running late for any reason at all. I'd tell them to go fxxk themselves and I suspect after hearing all of this, more will.

Never used the service once.

Greed? That's establishing the value of your service. Apparently, they were clearly undercharging at 11% because obviously people are willing to pay more. Now the market is telling them that 25-30% is too much.

BMW would sell you an $80,000 car for $100,000 if you're willing to pay it. That's normal. CEOs and operators who are charging 11% when they could get over 20% get fired. Obviously.

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Bogus argument. Why don't we all just get handed money to invest in the economy. I was going to write much worse things but thought better of it as I don't know you but I am sick of you government apologists.

Except this is hardly the first time a business has been granted money in our city. Considering their rapid growth, it's been paid back seeeeeveral times over and the city has become a job destination.

I'm generally of the opinion that the government shouldn't meddle, but this is a good instance of it, much like the afforsable living tax abatement or TIF. The problem arises whether favouritism becomes involved, but the principle is fine. In this case the execution was better than say TIF, which got swallowed up by mostly a couple projects.

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Go get a fucking loan from the bank.

Why get a loan when you could RAISE money?

Raising more money means either spending/investing more, or loaning less, either increasing opportunity and development or reducing exposure to financial risk.

Common sense.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Go get a fucking loan from the bank.

Banks are very reluctant to give loans to startup companies. If you do get a loan its at an exorbitant rate compared to established companies, or has conditions that are very strict and may put a startup company in default to have the loan called in.

[buzzg]

Don't blame SKIP for taking money offered to them, however they pay garbage salaries (to office workers even, not even touching couriers) and have horrible benefits, and the money should have had some sort of stipulation of requiring ownership to remain Canadian for X number of years (5 maybe). My beef with the loan is that it paid low salaries for employees for a year, then they just sold the company to a UK-based company.

In terms of it changing the industry... so what? Not their problem, and no one is forced to be on it. Makes sense for lots of whole in the wall places that already do lots of takeout, doesn't make sense for others. No one is going to not patronize Deer+Almond because they're not on Skip.

Originally Posted by cllew

Banks are very reluctant to give loans to startup companies. If you do get a loan its at an exorbitant rate compared to established companies, or has conditions that are very strict and may put a startup company in default to have the loan called in.

They were worth in the range of $30–$50m at the time, not even factoring future securities and growth.

[cllew]

I was not sure when the loan referenced was offered to SKIP, I thought it might have been a business development startup loan.

[buzzg]

2016

[headhorse]

skip is a garbage company and our government is garbage for bailing them out. guaranteed they'll have basically no presence here in 10 years.

[The Unknown Poster]

From a consumer perspective, I used to love Skip. It was a great concept if you order in pizza or Chinese food and want something different. We even ordered Stella's a few times and found it very good.

But since their sale (maybe a coincidence), their service is brutal. Sometimes their GPS doesnt work at all. One time when that was the case, I started a chat to inquire about why the driver was sitting somewhere for awhile and told the GPS only works once he picks up the order (which isnt true).

Another time, we watched the driver miss several potential turn offs to our area and end up on the other side of the river. The chat person again tried to convince us there was no issue and he was on his way as normal. Like, we were crazy for wondering what was happening.

They are also very cheap when it comes to make make-goods or refunds and of course, they push Skip Credits over refunds.

Probably the last ten times we used them, there were 8 issues ranging from mild annoyance to fury.

As far as their driver status, they accept the terms of "employment". On the other hand, a company making a killing should treat its people better. But if you have complete control over your schedule, you're not really an employee.

People have been hammering other industries, like WWE for classifying their talent as contractors when they have no say in their schedule and are not free to accept work elsewhere.

[Wolf13]

Despite the fact that I love skip, I also encounter problems with them. Whenever they have problems with GPS, their drivers greatly struggle to just follow the numbers on the correct road until they get to my place. Still, they provide a service somewhat unchallenged, and it's a service I want and I can't say I'm dissatisfied. I'm not impressed, but not unhappy.

As far as employees, is mistreatment documented? Or do people just expect their treatment to directly reflect Skip's success?