Having to wait a long time for your food delivery can be frustrating. As a DoorDash customer, you want to get your meal as soon as possible once you’ve placed your order. However, there are several legitimate reasons why your DoorDash order may take longer than expected to prepare.
Reasons for Long DoorDash Order Preparation Times
Here are some of the most common explanations for slow DoorDash order preparation:
The Restaurant is Busy
One of the most obvious reasons your food may take a while to prepare is that the restaurant is busier than normal. During peak dining hours like lunch and dinner rushes, kitchens can get backed up with orders. If the restaurant is short-staffed or there is an unexpected influx of dine-in customers, takeout orders may be temporarily pushed down in priority.
While it’s frustrating to have to wait when you’re hungry, try to remember the restaurant workers are simply doing their best to keep up with demand. The volume of orders ahead of yours is out of their control.
Special Instructions Delay Preparation
Customizing your order with special instructions can complicate food preparation. Asking for extra sauce on the side, no tomatoes, or other modifications means the kitchen has to pause and specially prepare your items. This slows down the overall cooking process, even if it’s just by a couple minutes per dish.
Similarly, complicated orders with many components will take longer to assemble. A custom salad or burrito bowl with multiple fillings is more time consuming than a simple sandwich or wrap to prepare.
Kitchen Understaffed
Being short cooks and chefs in the kitchen is another common reason for delays. Just like with customer surges, having inadequate staffing to handle the order volume at a restaurant can quickly lead to backups.
With fewer people to prep ingredients, cook food, assemble orders, and package everything up, each ticket takes longer from start to finish. Even experienced kitchen staff need time to complete orders properly.
Delivery Driver Not Yet Assigned
While the app may indicate the food is still being prepared, occasionally the hold up is the order is ready but has not been assigned a driver yet. The restaurant marks the order as complete on their end, but until a driver accepts the delivery, DoorDash’s system still shows the order as being prepared.
Drivers have to adequately space out pickups based on distances and traffic. Unforeseen delays like canceled orders can also disrupt driver assignment. DoorDash has to match each order with an optimal driver, which takes a little extra coordination time.
Problem with Order Submission
Issues on DoorDash’s end with the app or website may also be the culprit for longer prep times. A glitch during order submission could delay it reaching the restaurant. The app may show the order is still being processed even after the restaurant received and started working on it.
If there was a mistake entered with the order details, DoorDash customer support may also have to manually resolve it before sending the corrected ticket to the restaurant. Hiccups like these understandably add a few minutes to the prep process.
Multiple Delivery Apps
Many restaurants partner with more than one food delivery service nowadays. Juggling orders from DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub, etc. makes the process more complex. Tracking which orders belong to each service and managing all the pickups can impact preparation speeds.
Without an integrated system, keeping orders organized from multiple platforms is challenging for restaurant workers. This can unintentionally result in delays for customers such as yourself.
DoorDash Underestimated Time
DoorDash builds estimated order prep and delivery times into their system based on data gathered across restaurants. However, their calculations aren’t always perfect. Variances in a specific kitchen’s speed or short-term issues can make the real time needed longer than DoorDash’s estimate.
The algorithm may have underestimated how long your particular order would take during unusual circumstances. While the estimate aims to be realistic, unexpected bottlenecks happen. DoorDash is constantly working on improving order time accuracy.
Food Safety Precautions
One factor customers often overlook is restaurants meticulously following food safety protocols. This comprehensive care in preparing and packaging items adds a few minutes per order. However, it’s a necessary measure to protect your health.
Cleanliness, keeping cold foods properly chilled, and ensuring hot foods maintain temperature are essential. You likely appreciate these precautions once you receive your food. Prioritizing food safety does mean slightly longer prep times though.
Delivery Distance
How far away you live from the restaurant also plays a role. DoorDash factors estimated drive time into the order preparation timeline. Items need to be ready to hand off when the driver arrives for optimal delivery efficiency.
For longer distances, DoorDash adds extra cushion to the prep estimate. This helps your food stay hot and prevents it from sitting and getting cold. Orders outside normal delivery zones require more lead time.
How Long is Too Long for Order Preparation?
Obviously an hour or longer to make a basic meal goes beyond reasonable and warrants contacting support. But what about more ambiguous times like 20-45 minutes? Here are some general time frames to use as a guide:
| Order Type | Reasonable Prep Time |
|---|---|
| Sandwiches, burgers, pasta, etc. | 15-25 minutes |
| Pizzas | 20-30 minutes |
| Salads, bowls | 25-35 minutes |
| Entrees, large orders | 30-45 minutes |
However, factoring in the context around an order is also important. If you’re ordering at 1pm on a Tuesday when restaurants are less busy, longer times may be excessive. But during Friday dinner rush, a 40 minute prep on a big order may be expected.
Use your best judgment based on the size of the order, complexity, restaurant volume, and other indicators. An anomaly like 1 hour for a single sandwich is likely unreasonable. For large, customized orders at peak, longer prep may be understandable.
How to Check on a Delayed DoorDash Order
First, open the DoorDash app and check the tracker. This will show you the step-by-step status including confirmed, being prepared, picked up, en route, delivered, etc. If an order seems stuck on “Being prepared” or “Confirmed” for a while, you may need to take action.
From the tracker, you can tap the ? icon and select “Something is wrong” to start chatting with support. Explain your order has shown as being prepped for X minutes and ask if they can check with the restaurant. They may be able to quickly determine if there is an issue and resolve it.
If you don’t see an active chat option, you can call DoorDash support directly. The number is (855) 973-1040. This is available 24/7. After selecting your language, say “Agent” to be connected with a representative.
You can then explain your delayed order and they can reach out to the restaurant for an update. If there are any problems, they can work to address it or potentially offer a refund if unreasonable.
How to Prevent Future Delay Issues
While delays are often unavoidable, you can take some steps to potentially speed up future orders:
- Order outside of typical lunch and dinner rush times when restaurants are less busy.
- Keep customization simple. The more add-ons and substitutions, the longer to prepare.
- Be reasonable with delivery distance. Far distances equal more lead time.
- Make sure you entered the correct address and contact info to prevent issues.
- Add special instructions if you want food specially packaged for transport.
Understand delays happen sometimes. Be patient and polite to restaurant staff when possible. Also factor in preparation when ordering. If you’re starving, give yourself extra time cushion.
Conclusion
Waiting longer than expected for your DoorDash order can quickly dampen your excitement for the meal. But in many cases, reasonable explanations exist for the delay. Busy kitchens, large orders, food safety steps, and other factors commonly add a few extra minutes.
Check the tracker for order status, contact support if excessive times, and provide polite feedback to the restaurant if there were issues. Understand delays occur occasionally, but reach out for help if your order gets stuck in “preparing” limbo.
With thousands of restaurants using multiple delivery services at once, hiccups in order timing happen. But DoorDash continues updating their technology and processes to optimize delivery speed while maintaining quality and safety.