TechStuff The Story: The Death of Dining In
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Dec 10, 2025 Ellen Cushing, a staff writer at The Atlantic, dives into the transformation of dining culture driven by delivery apps. She explores how these platforms have changed our perception of food and dining, drawing parallels to the decline of movie theaters. Ellen discusses early delivery practices, the influence of venture capital, and how the pandemic accelerated the shift to takeout. She highlights challenges for restaurants, the economics for drivers, and warns that dining out may become a rare treat rather than a daily norm.
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From Toy Phone To Real Restaurant Strain
- Karah Preiss recounts calling for Chinese takeout from a toy kitchen as a child.
- Her stepfather later ran a London restaurant and saw delivery platforms shrink its margins.
Third-Party Delivery Rewrote Logistics
- Delivery shifted from restaurant employees to contractor networks in the early 2010s.
- That change enabled third-party apps to scale deliveries across many restaurants quickly.
College Project Became Delivery Infrastructure
- Colin Wallace built a system to connect phones to point-of-sale systems in 2011.
- His startup was acquired by Grubhub and he became head of innovation.