Letter: Door Dash Kashrus issue

To whom this may concern, One of BMG’s Rabbanim asked me to publicize this issue.

There is a new service online called Door Dash. It works as follows: You order something from a restaurant in your neighborhood that’s on their website, pay for the items plus a service fee and Door Dash calls or emails your order into the store. When it’s ready, they send someone to pick up the order, pay for it and deliver it to your home or business. This can cause major issues of Basar Shenisalem among other potential Kashrus problems. I had to throw out $30 worth of food last week as the store said (and they’re probably right) that they’re not responsible for deliveries not arranged by them.

Door Dash doesn’t ask the restaurant before they add it to their site-they just put up any place where they can get hold of the menu. In fact, they have a local kosher pizza shop selling pizza, meatballs and turkey and ham sandwiches. They also don’t take a percentage from the store like other online delivery services, which leaves the store completely out of the picture. The store therefore doesn’t know to “Kosher Tape” the food before it’s sent out. After some research I found that some stores are Makpid to Kosher Tape anything leaving the store in the hands of a delivery person even if it’s a business employee picking up lunch for the company, but not every store is careful.

Please be aware of these potential issues before using any delivery service including Door Dash, GrubHub and Uber Eats (which is not yet available in Lakewood).

(TLS welcomes your letters by submitting them to [email protected])

This content, and any other content on TLS, may not be republished or reproduced without prior permission from TLS. Copying or reproducing our content is both against the law and against Halacha. To inquire about using our content, including videos or photos, email us at [email protected].

Stay up to date with our news alerts by following us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

**Click here to join over 20,000 receiving our Whatsapp Status updates!**

**Click here to join the official TLS WhatsApp Community!**

Got a news tip? Email us at [email protected], Text 415-857-2667, or WhatsApp 609-661-8668.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Any store should tape the package that’s sent by delivery.

    If they don’t, they aren’t following halacha- whether it’s door dash or their own.

    Btw – there’s another company that does this- Postmates. (but not in lkwd)

  2. When you order from door dash, door dash calls in the order as a pickup, not as a delivery. The restaurant doesn’t know it’s a delivery service that is ordering the food, rather they think it’s “John doe” that’s picking up his own order and therefore some places don’t think to tape up the order because it’s not meant for delivery, rather as a pickup.
    With that said, you can call the store after doordash order and tell them to tape up that order for you. Or you can put in a special request on door dash order page that the restaurants see and hopefully follow those special interactions that you lost.

  3. To all those wondering, I have dealt with door dash from the store side of things. The store does not seal it because they don’t know it’s a delivery, door dash calls it in as a regular order and some goy comes to pick it up. But the store doesn’t know it’s a delivery for a Jew. As far as the store is concerned it’s a A person calling in an order for himself who happens not to be Jewish. And yes u can put a note that says please seal order.

  4. In Miami where they have Uber Eats the store does know it’s an Uber delivery and they are full participants in the process. This is an advantage to Uber Ears.

Comments are closed.