Today was one of those days when cooking was simply not in the cards. I was busy working on my garden planning and arranging business meetings, so by the time 5pm rolled in, I was done – all week of daily gym, work, kids partially home schooled, cleaning, and cooking could kill even the strongest of us.

Grubhub is one of the new pleasures I discovered since COVID-19 started. Sure, we ordered Domino’s and Papa John’s countless times for parties and stuff, but I never thought that meals from my favorite restaurants can arrive at my door efficiently, conveniently, and contact-free! This discovery might just change my life as I am falling more and more out of love with cooking.

I was raised with the notion that a woman cooks for her family, but as years go by I also started to understand that my hours spent by the pots can be used for something better. Don’t get me wrong, I still cook and want to treat my family to homemade meals, but every momma needs a break. At least once a week!

So this once a week treat of no cooking is now brought to me by Grubhub. And they have been wonderful! Let’s take a look at my last ordering experience and that will explain why I like this service so much.

First, the app is very easy to use. It’s similar to the competitors’, but at the same time I feel like it’s a bit more user-friendly. Maybe it’s because I am used to it. To use this service you have to create an account with your address and basic information. Once you do that, every time you open the app, it’ll know your address and will show all the restaurants that are within Grubhub reach.

Next you can pick delivery or pick-up, sort restaurants by popularity, speed, price, rating, and distance. I haven’t tried pick-up yet and not sure if I will because then I could just call restaurant directly. Next are perks, which are collection of restaurants currently offering something special – discounts in dollars or percentages or free meal additions. Some of these special offers are visible when you search for restaurants, which is what you do on the main section of the app.

You can easily reorder from previous restaurants and it is very convenient as you don’t have to look for those eateries all over the app. We are creatures of habit and enjoy this option very much.

Each restaurant has a picture of its food, delivery fee, type of cuisine, rating from 1 to 5, and how many people rated it. You can browse all those offers or look for an eatery based on cuisine, dietary limitations, or look up your favorite place by name.

Grubhub also offers Grubhub+, which is a monthly membership for $9.99. It gives you unlimited free delivery, one free $10 meal per month, membership perks, and free cancellation at any time. This is something to consider for those who use such service more than once a month, because some deliveries can be $12.99 per time.

This time I was overjoyed because our favorite Thai restaurant was finally included in Grubhub’s area of service for us. In the past it was considered too far and not available, so I had given up trying, but today it was there, which is as it should be, because it’s only 15 minutes away from us!

Three of us have favorite meals from M Thai Street Food restaurant and my husband is the only one who likes to try new things. So I went ahead and ordered Seafood Mee Krob for my kids, coconut chicken soup and Panang curry for me and Salmon Noodle Green Curry for my husband. This amount of food usually makes one dinner and the next day’s lunch for us.

My goal was to stay at about $70, and I did that for just food. Unfortunately, you have to pay for convenience, so my total arrived at $99:

• $71 for food
• $6.32 sales tax
• $4.99 delivery fee
• $4.50 service fee
• $12 custom tip

Sure, I could’ve skipped tip, but I would never do that. I used to work in restaurant business years ago and since then I always tip, especially during the pandemic, when these guys became frontline workers keeping us fed.

After the order is placed, Grub Hub sends text message updates about the progress of the order. I got three messages. One was to let me know that my order was sent to the restaurant at 4:39pm. Next one informed me that my order will arrive between 5:10pm and 5:20pm. Third and final said that the driver is about to arrive and was sent at 5:05. The driver showed up 2 minutes later and was very polite. I saw him because I was outside on the phone at the time. Otherwise delivery is completely contact-free and I wouldn’t have to see anybody.

The food arrived hot and earlier than anticipated, so I was extremely happy with my experience.

I think I could’ve tracked the progress of the order on the app, but I had to take a business call, so I couldn’t.

We all enjoyed our dinner and will have a nice lunch tomorrow, so I didn’t mind paying all those extra fees that I wouldn’t have to do if I picked it myself.

You pay for what you get these days, so rock on, Grubhub and keep delivering!