There's pasta in the pantry and jarred sauce in the refrigerator. So what compels Kiely Reedy to keep having spaghetti with marinara delivered from the restaurant down the street, for several times the cost of cooking the dish herself?
It’s not that the restaurant dish is particularly good, she said. “It’s the instant gratification.”
From her roughly US$50,000 (RM197,400) annual salary as a data processor in San Diego, Reedy, 34, spends at least US$200 to US$300 (RM790 to RM1,184) a week on food delivery. Ordering in has eaten away at her savings, she said, and led her to socialise less.
“I feel reliant upon it,” she said, “but guilt for using it.”
Food delivery, which skyrocketed during the pandemic as a practical necessity, has become even more entrenched in the years since as a convenience, an everyday alternative to cooking or eating out. DoorDash is now a verb. And the new delivery economy is transforming the way Americans live – reshaping budgets, mealtimes and social habits.
In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group said.
A 2025 survey states that about one-third of American adults ordered food for delivery once a week.
We asked New York Times readers to share their feelings about food delivery. Most of the 900 respondents prized the time and freedom, but worried about costs to drivers, the environment and their own budgets.
Many readers said they had impulsively ordered a single item for delivery: a coffee, a milkshake, a scoop of ice cream. Erin Molnar, a marketer in Ferndale, Michigan, once paid about US$15 (RM59) for a tiny chocolate cake.
“I remember feeling kind of crazy for having one single thing delivered,” she said, adding, “It is a blessing and a curse that we are financially privileged.
There is not much of a financial pressure to not order out as much.”Rising grocery prices strain Americans, while the homebound depend on delivery. Major apps – DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub –say they provide time-saving choice.
“You can find almost anything available for on-demand delivery,” an Uber Eats spokesperson wrote.
That message has a special resonance for the working parents we heard from. Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job in Atlanta, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his partner spend about US$700 (RM2,764) a week to order in.
'I don't go out anymore'
Missy Auge, who recently moved home to Santa Fe, New Mexico, from Los Angeles to work as a sommelier, has most of her food delivered.
“I still have friends here, but I don’t go out anymore,” she said.
Neha Kowal, an events director in Yardley, Pennsylvania, began ordering meals when her two adult children lived with her and her husband during the pandemic. But she has continued as an empty nester because it allows her to spend more time with friends.
“It has been a big forgiving act for myself,” said Kowal, 54, who commutes an hour each way to New York City for work three days a week. “I would rather sit and catch up with a friend over a drink than worry about what we are going to have for dinner that night.” She recently invited friends over, and “we DoorDashed dinner.”
Helena Kim, a stay-at-home mother in Chula Vista, California, decided that when she turned 59, she no longer wanted to cook. “I was getting groceries delivered anyway,” she said, “so if I am going to order groceries, I may as well order the whole meal.” She tips well and gives drivers high ratings.
Kim, now 60, adores her automated life. “I get Amazon delivery as well as food and grocery delivery,” she said.
The view from outside
Still, such an on-demand lifestyle can keep consumers from developing critical skills like problem solving, planning ahead or making tough decisions, said Huy Do, a research and insights manager at the market research firm Datassential.
That’s why so many young people are “choosing to make financial and food-based decisions in the moment that feel good now,” said Do, even though it can prevent them from making longer-term financial investments.
Ordering meals online also disconnects people from food and its preparation, said Yash Babar, a professor at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Last year, he published a report showing that when food delivery platforms entered counties across the United States, residents spent an average of 9% less time cooking each day than they did before.
That disconnect extends to restaurants, many of which have accepted a trade-off: Delivery helped keep them afloat during the pandemic and expanded their customer base, but they now have fewer in-house diners.
Some of the people most affected by this disengagement are the ones delivering the meals, whose interactions with customers are limited because drivers are commonly instructed to leave food at the door. Even though these drivers don’t often see their customers, they notice plenty.
“It seems like everyone uses these delivery services whether they have the money or not,” said Mitch Drabenstott, 32, a driver in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Steph Bazzle, a writer in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, who drives for DoorDash, said she’s often surprised by which customers are more welcoming.
“When you go to subsidised housing, the tips are better and the people are nicer,” said Bazzle, 42. “When you go to the more expensive houses, there will be a whole lot of instructions like, ‘Don’t park on my driveway.’”
She keeps doing drop-offs because it allows her to feed five children at home. The money she and her husband make from day jobs isn’t enough to cover routine expenses.
Austin Layne, 31, who drives for Uber Eats in Los Angeles, said he needs that extra income to supplement his salary as a data analyst. He said he is usually paid US$2 to US$4 (RM7.90 to RM16) per delivery, no matter how far he has to drive. Tips, if he gets them, are no more than a few dollars per order.
Like many drivers, he grumbles about the pay. The job can feel dehumanising, he said, particularly when he sees delivery robots doing the work.
“It can certainly feel like I am one of those, and not an actual person who has to go to a restaurant, pick up the food and drive it to your house,” he said. But he keeps delivering because he likes the flexible hours.
Another reason Layne stays at it is to pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery. He has since cut back on the habit.
Will Parks, 36, decided to pare back after looking at his annual credit card report in 2024 and realising that he had spent about a third of his money on ordering in.
“Food delivery is a scam,” he said. “It is incredibly expensive; the quality has gone down precipitously; and with costs being so high, I took a hard look at it and was like, ‘This is a waste of my cash and time.’"
“You feel kind of tricked,” added Parks, who works in strategy for an entertainment company in Los Angeles. “You have reshaped your life based on their business model.”
In weaning himself from delivery, he has discovered a new passion – something that allows him to step away from his phone, focus on a task and feel a sense of accomplishment: cooking.
Preparing a meal takes far more time than ordering dinner with the press of a button. But “it feels good,” he said. “It feels more adult, frankly.” – ©2026 The New York Times Company
