A new food delivery service is in operation in Montreal, as DoorDash from San Francisco introduced in the city today (August 14).
DoorDash is expanding in Canada with the goal of having a presence in 100 cities by the end of 2019 – it has had a presence in Canada, England for some time (it was launched in Toronto in 2015), but Montreal is the first step into the Francophone world.
At its launch, DoorDash stays mostly in the west of the city: it’s available in Côte-des-Neiges, NDG, Lachine, Westmount, Ville-St-Laurent, Town of Mount-Royal (TMR) and Ahuntsic-Cartierville starting today. More neighborhoods and boroughs should be added in the first few weeks, including the Plateau, Little Italy, and the Ville-Marie / Inner City region – DoorDash plans to eventually serve the entire greater Montreal area.
The full list of the 300 or so Montreal restaurants that have signed up for DoorDash can be found on the website, but it includes many local chains like Notre Boeuf de Grace, Korean Resto Mon Ami, kebab favorite Boustan, and most of the companies under the umbrella of Foodtastic. like the burger bar La Belle et La Boeuf and the Pizzeria Bacaro; Deliveries are made daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The company has also set up two offices in Montreal – one downtown will handle the corporate side, while another in Ville-St-Laurent will be bringing in delivery companies.
DoorDash’s facility is functionally similar to existing delivery services in town – restaurants sign up to work with the company, and deliveries are handled by a fleet of DoorDash’s own contractors, not the restaurants themselves. Foodora is based in Germany works much like Uber Eats – DoorDash joins these two companies in an increasingly crowded delivery scene in the city.
Similar to the often criticized guidelines of other companies, the cyclists and drivers of DoorDash are not employees, but “independent contractors”, ie they are not subject to the minimum wage law. Doordash faced additional controversy last month as customer tips counted toward base delivery workers’ salaries rather than as a bonus. Since then it has changed that policy.
There are a couple of slightly more local options too – Montreal-based Golo has a similar role (though it also supplies products from retail stores), and there’s Skip The Dishes, which is from Winnipeg but was acquired by a UK company that just eats it in 2018.
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