Fees Are the New Battleground ⚔️

Hey there,

Grubhub just trained customers to chase $50+ orders by cutting fees — so this week you’ll build a $52–$58 “click once” bundle that lifts check size without discounting, and tighten scheduling/cross-training to protect labor as hiring eases (a bit).

1️⃣ The Signal

Grubhub drew a hard $50 line.

Grubhub just moved the goalposts: no delivery + service fees on restaurant orders over $50.

They sold it with a Super Bowl spot (George Clooney, weird dinner party, the whole thing). But the real story is the line in the sand: $50.

Food On Demand says roughly half of Grubhub customers place $50+ orders each year, and fees on those big orders cleared $1B across the category in 2025. That tells you what Grubhub is chasing: bigger baskets, more often.

Their CEO, Howard Migdal, put it plainly: “When you spend $50, you actually get $50 worth of food.”

Here’s why you should care: guests are getting trained to hate checkout surprises. If your menu makes it hard to build a clean $50+ order, they don’t blame the platform. They blame your prices — and they bail.

What this tells us:

Grubhub’s $50 line just changed the checkout game — here’s the real strategy

2️⃣ 💰 The Margin Move

💰 This Week’s Margin Move: Build a $52 “no-brainer” bundle

If guests are aiming for $50, don’t make them do math. Give them a “click once” bundle that lands at $52–$58 before tax/tip.

Do this:

Step one: Pull your last 30 days of delivery tickets. Count how many orders land in $35–$49.99. That’s your opportunity pile.

Step two: Build 2 bundles using your top sellers + high-margin add-ons (fries, slaw, rice, a cookie, bottled drinks). Price them at $52–$58. Make them feed 3–4.

Step three: Pin the bundles at the very top of your delivery menu. Name them like a human: “Family Pack,” “Game Night,” “Office Lunch.” One sentence description. No poetry.

Quick rule: don’t promise “no fees.” That’s the platform’s call, not yours. Just make the order feel complete at that price point.

Why it works:

You lift average check without touching every price. Bigger tickets absorb packaging costs, and the guest feels the value before the checkout screen tries to steal their appetite.

3️⃣ 🧠 Operator Edge

Labor’s loosening a bit — but only if you use it.

The National Restaurant Association says eating and drinking places added 27,800 jobs in January, and the industry is now about 105,000 jobs above the Feb 2020 peak. On paper, that sounds like “finally.”

Reality check: full-service is still 210,000 jobs short of pre-pandemic levels (as of Dec 2025). So if you’re running full-service, you’re not imagining it — it’s still thin.

Restaurant Dive’s labor tracker says wage growth has been decelerating after the early post-COVID years when “you saw wages increasing 10% to 15% year over year.” Translation: you may see more applicants… but the good ones still have options.

Operator move: use this moment to lock your schedule. Cut one dead shift. Cross-train one person. Write prep lists that a new hire can actually follow. If you don’t control labor hours, labor hours control you.

Margins don’t fix themselves.

Labor’s cooling, but the shortage isn’t dead — the numbers from Restaurant Dive  +  NRA

Why It Matters

The new “benchmark” isn’t your price — it’s the checkout feeling.

Platforms are training guests to shop by thresholds, not cravings. If you don’t make it effortless to hit that number with a complete order, you’ll lose the ticket — and you’ll lose the repeat.

Your move: ship one $52–$58 bundle this week and tighten one part of your schedule (kill a dead shift or cross-train one role). Two small changes that protect margin immediately.