Forgot your lunch? Want to dine on your favorite restaurant’s food at school? Postmates and Doordash, two third-party delivery apps (which are also websites), have you covered.
Postmates provides over 4,000 delivery options from Trader Joe’s to Tower Cafe to Jamba Juice. (Postmates General Store also covers school supplies, candy and over-the-counter medicine.)
Doordash offers 950 Sacramento restaurant options, separated into categories such as pizza, Mexican and fast food.
Employees from Postmates and Doordash go to the selected place, order and pick up the merchandise and deliver the food to the customer’s address.
In a May 11 Octagon poll of 79 high-school students, 41 percent said that they had used a third-party food delivery service. Of those students, 3 percent said they used it several times a week, 6 percent every week, 31 percent twice a month, 50 percent every couple of months and 10 percent had used it only a few times.
Senior Cameron Collins is one of those who uses Postmates and Doordash several times a week. He started using the services at the beginning of his sophomore year.
“When I started using it, Postmates said they weren’t allowed to deliver to school,” Collins said.
“I just kept ordering food until they stopped saying that.”
Postmates canceled Collins’s orders, also refunding him, until the middle of his sophomore year.
Collins said that since he pays for his orders, his parents don’t mind if he purchases food while already having a lunch.
Besides Doordash having cheaper delivery fees (which depend on location) and a smaller selection of restaurants, Collins said the two services are the same.
“Postmates has the most restaurants that I’ve seen so far,” Collins said. “You can pretty much order from any place in Sacramento; they just have high delivery fees.
“Doordash has a good amount and costs a lot less.”
Sophomore Monet Cook, who uses Postmates once or twice a month, said that she is mostly satisfied with the restaurant selection. However, she said that ordering for some restaurants can be tricky.
“For places like Pinkberry and Cookie Connection, they don’t have a menu,” Cook said. “You have to know exactly what you want word for word, or you don’t get it.”
Cook and Collins said they use the delivery services when they are hungry or do not have a lunch. They also buy food for their friends if the friends are hungry and will pay them back.
Cook said that her food usually comes within the expected time (which can be around 20 minutes to an hour for Postmates) or faster.
Collins agreed, saying that only one in 25 orders is late.
Cook also said the Postmates employees are kind and accommodating.
“They could be really annoying when they come (to SCDS), but the people are always super nice about it,” Cook said.
“They get out of the car, walk it to (me) or put it in the front office for me if I’m in a class. I appreciate that because I don’t have to leave class to get it.”
In the poll, 69 percent of students said they have used the delivery services during lunch or their free period, 11 percent said they have used it during class with a teacher’s permission and 3 percent have used it without a teacher’s permission.
Math teacher Elissa Thomas said that students need to ask permission before class if they plan on ordering or picking up food. Only once have students used a third-party delivery service without asking, she said.
“The students had ordered it in the class period before without that teacher’s permission, and then it was delivered during my class,” Thomas said.
“I let them pick it up because the delivery person was already here, but they were not allowed to eat the food in class.”
“Since then,” Thomas said, “everyone has asked ahead of time.”
—Larkin Barnard-Bahn
