General

I plan to doordash to supplement my income for a few weeks. If anyone has been a doordasher in the past and has tried gaining during it, what are the food/drinks to look out for?

If not, I’m also looking for:
-Food/Drinks from a specific fast food restaurant which has a quick turnaround time so I can be actively delivering orders.

-Food that would be easy to have one handed since I most likely will be driving.

I don’t have experience door dashing but I have a lot of driving while eating experience and when I’m in a rush. Roller Dogs and “hot snacks” at gas stations are something I always consider, and gas stations are everywhere. They exist as quick things for people to grab while going in to pay for gas. Any of them are as good as the other. They also have donuts which are easy but can be annoying if you get a real sugary one which will make your hands all sticky. Get wet wipes to clean yourself btw. Food places? When on the road I try to stay away from bigger things like big sub sandwiches or big greasy burgers as good as they are they are a bit messy and frustrating to eat while driving, chicken nuggets chicken strips some hot wings are all great options. Smaller burgers are doable, McDoubles or White Castle burgers comes to mind.

Avoid chic fil a at all costs- the lines are miserable.

Taco Bell is also a killer for time something about arranging meat beans and cheese in different formations slows them way down. Chipotle can be quick if it’s lunch time that’s there prime time dinner can be a bit slow.

Have you done DoorDash before at all, or not? If you're really insistent, there might be a few tips I can share. But, if you have any other options, I strongly recommend NOT doing it. Once you actually do the math, the pay is extremely bad, although better than Uber or Lyft, which are basically scams.

For about 1.5 months in '18, I tried doing it part-time just to see what the hype was about. The effective rate, after taxes and expenses (mainly gas) was only a pathetic $8/hr., though some time periods were higher than others. Might be even worse now, but I don't really know.

You'd probably be better off trying to get an evening wait staff job at a restaurant first. That pay still sucks, but should be a lot better. Especially if you do a Friday or Saturday evening. Just make sure it doesn't expect you to come in to work before your day job ends. Places like that love to hire part-timers with no benefits, so you might be able to be flexible like that. The evenings are also when all the good tips happen, and it's often not that busy before around 6PM or so, so if you work your day job until 5PM, you can probably get there and change in time.

At the time of making this post, I didn’t. Now I’ve just tried it, it’s not bad honestly. They offer minimum wage + tips as pay which is good enough for me.

Now having done a single “shift,” to answer my own thread… I think the snacking potential is much more obvious in hindsight. Anytime someone needs a drive-thru order, there is nothing stopping me from getting my own separate order, so long as my order doesn’t come out delayed. I’m thinking shakes are the magic no-wait option as they shouldn’t be different to a drink.

Following from what morbidly has said, I agree on the roller dog, easy enough to hold and drive. Honestly, most combo drink + food deal from a gas station fits for eating while driving. Might not be the best for fitting between orders as they come so fast, but I will need to fill up gas eventually so still a good option.

Minimum plus tips? That's new. Maybe only during certain times and you're expected to maintain a minimum acceptance rate?

When I did it, there was no guaranteed wage at all, you'd only get paid if an order came in, you accepted it, and it was delivered. Some time periods would have almost no orders at all.

Anyway, if you do it, at least do these things:

The early evening hours are the only time the pay approaches something closer to say, pizza delivery. So basically 5:30 to 6PM until maybe around 9:30PM.

After 10PM, that's when most of the takeout restaurants will close, and that's when you start dealing with the drunks. Not worth it.

Speaking of the actual delivery, there was no contactless option back then. I had to physically hand the bag over, every single time. If they don't answer the door? I have to wait until they do. I once had to wait 10-15 minutes, meanwhile not getting paid. Hated that shit so much. That would have been a godsend back then.

Above all, avoid the crowded downtown areas or anywhere parking is tight. Even one parking ticket wipes out any income for the day, and that also takes much longer. The sooner orders get finished, the more tips you can get.

I also remembered one time spending an hour looking for an apartment because it was kind of hidden out of the way and the phone call relay system decided to fail that night, but that's a one off and not typical.

Eventually you'll learn which restaurants are slow, so you might think twice about accepting orders from them. I remember one time an order was a steakhouse, and I waited half an hour unpaid for it to get cooked. I'd eventually get more tip for doing that but I didn't know that going in.

Speaking of tips, don't prioritize the rich areas. The tips aren't generally any better, usually about the same or sometimes worse, and sometimes there's a greater sense of entitlement. Some of the best tips came from those living in cheap, kind of run down apartments.

And perhaps obviously, don't go into the dangerous parts of town, ever. I heard of cases of the car getting stolen and the driver getting robbed. Yet I've also heard that if you carry a gun and use it, they'll fire you for it, regardless of the reason, even if perfectly justified (like getting assaulted or robbed).