Steep Delivery App Fees Force Brooklyn Restaurant To Close: Owner

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A beloved Bed-Stuy Indian restaurant has permanently closed because it couldn't afford to keep paying steep fees to delivery apps, its owners said.

Delhi Heights on Decatur Street and Howard Avenue shuttered its doors because it couldn't afford what owners estimated was a 35 percent commission to apps such as Seamless, Uber Eats and DoorDash, they wrote on the restaurant website.

"We couldn't sustain anymore," the notice reads. "Unfortunately we have closed this restaurant permanently."

Patch was unable to reach owners for comment as the restaurant's landline had been disconnected and the GrubStreet press office did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

This is not the first time the online delivery websites' fees have faced criticism from New York City restaurants this summer.

Several city eateries told the New York Post in May that GrubHub, which owns Seamless, charged them up to $9 for phone calls from customers who never ordered food.

The hidden fees spurred restaurants across the nation to sue the Chicago-based company for $5 million in damages, the Post reported.

GrubHub may also be buying up thousands of restaurant website addresses that redirect potential new clients away from local businesses and toward their own sites, The New Food Economy reported in June.

One of the sites reportedly bought by Seamless is this one for Delhi Heights. Unlike the website with the closure notice, it has an ad for Seamless at the bottom of the screen and multiple links directing browsers to order food online.