The delivery app is not a channel, it's a cost centre

The mistake is treating the delivery app ticker as a revenue line. The thirty percent commission, the packaging cost, the separate prep rhythm and the refund risk mean every delivery dollar arrives at a fraction of the margin of the same dish served in the room.

Start by separating delivery sales from dine-in in the P&L. Most operators see a headline sales number that looks healthy and miss that the blended margin has fallen. The fix is a contribution margin per channel: revenue minus food cost, commission, packaging and the labour of running a separate ticket stream.

Once you can see the real contribution, the decisions get clearer. Some items should never be on the delivery menu — they don't travel, they cost the same to make, and the commission eats the margin. A curated delivery menu that protects contribution is better than mirroring the full dine-in offering.

The operators doing this well treat delivery as a deliberate channel with its own menu, its own pricing and its own margin target — not as whatever falls off the full menu into a bag.