![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Photo-Nov-13-7-45-10-PM.jpg\" "\\"Photo")
<\/p>\nAbout a month ago, we (me and @ndoto) passed a Burger King that had a large banner out front: Now Hiring Delivery Drivers. Delivery drivers? Local restaurants have had a type of local delivery before, using a service called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Waiter on the Way\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but delivery direct from Burger King? This was new, and something I had never heard about previously. Then, last week we received the following postcard in the mail:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Needless to say, we were curious. So, we decided to give it a try Saturday night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There were two methods of placing delivery, just like with most major pizza chains: phone, or website. Since delivery is very (very) restricted right now, the website takes your address in an attempt to determine if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in a deliverable area. I say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153attempt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, because it kept saying our address was not within the delivery area. We tried several variations before giving up and calling the phone number. Later on, I found out that while the website didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accept \u00e2\u20ac\u0153South\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153S.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, it did accept just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153S\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It needs to be more fault tolerant than that.<\/p>\n
Anyway, placing the order over the phone was rather painless, mostly because we already knew what we wanted. There is no way to access the menu online unless you have a deliverable address, so if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want one of the items listed on the postcard above, you have to already be familiar with BK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s menu \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and pray it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a deliverable item. The person taking the order was even familiar with our address, and knew that it required interacting with a call box \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a pleasant surprise considering that most local pizza chains are still stymied by our address.<\/p>\n
The food was delivered about 20 minutes later, just like any other food delivery. The food was pulled out of an insulated sleeve, and \u00e2\u20ac\u201c since we paid with credit card over the phone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just left a tip and signed the credit card slip.<\/p>\n
All right, so what about that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new packaging technology\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Turns out styrofoam is new again. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just a normal syrofoam container, however. The post card describes how it keeps the beef hot and the veggies cool. Well, they do this by making a styrofoam sandwich container with two compartments. The lower part contained the bottom bun, the burger, the cheese, and the red onion. There is then a styrofoam divider and an upper half, which contains the lettuce, tomato and upper bun half.<\/p>\n
The fries are packaged in a box with holes in the top to let the steam escape. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very similar to how you receive BK fries in the restaurant, but more secure.<\/p>\n
So does it work? Sort of. The burger definitely fares better packaged this way than if it were just wrapped in paper like in the restaurant. However, while their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153two compartment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d theory is clever, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not perfect.<\/p>\n
The veggies weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cool. They were cooler than the burger, sure. But they were warm. The burger was a perfect temperature, however keeping the lower bun in the bottom half was a big mistake. Steam from the burger condensed at the top of the container, ran down the sides, and collected at the bottom, making the lower bun soggy and squishy. Not good.<\/p>\n
Obviously they package it this way because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most similar to how the burger is actually formed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bun, meat, cheese, veggies, bun. But really, the veggies and both buns need to be on the bottom \u00e2\u20ac\u201c cold air sinks. The burger, cheese and other hot ingredients should be on top \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hot air rises. But then the consumer might actually need to think to put their meal back together, and we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that, can we?<\/p>\n
The fries weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bad. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t soggy, but they were unusually stiff. I like a crispy exterior to my fries and they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that. I think maybe they lost a bit too much of their heat. Not sure. BK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fries are lackluster to begin with, though, so I guess they did what they could with what they had.<\/p>\n
All in all, their delivery service is on the right track. They need to make some tweaks in order to truly make it viable. But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve definitely put thought into it, and I appreciate that. If we do the delivery again, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take pictures \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and maybe there will be some improvements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About a month ago, we (me and @ndoto) passed a Burger King that had a large banner out front: Now Hiring Delivery Drivers. Delivery drivers? Local restaurants have had a type of local delivery before, using a service called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Waiter on the Way\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but delivery direct from Burger King? This was new, and something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,44,4],"tags":[118,65,119,164],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mageuzi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}