The West Seattle Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter to the Seattle City Council urging them to place a cap on food delivery fees from local restaurants. The letter notes that a fee of 30% is too high and requests a more reasonable 15% fee.

Attention: City of Seattle Council Members

We are urgently requesting that the Council enact a cap on delivery fees for companies such as Postmates, Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats and the like. They have an advantage on delivery and are unfairly charging our local businesses 30% on their deliveries in a time of crisis. They have also been using this opportunity during the COVID-19 challenge to tell consumers that using their services are helping small businesses when the only one benefiting from these programs are these corporations. They do not have the restaurant’s interest at heart, this is merely an opportunity to further their growth and outreach to a new consumer base and increase revenues.

Many restaurants lose money on their deliveries during normal market conditions, the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce Board and its members are asking that you follow suit with San Francisco and now New York in limiting the fees that are able to be collected in the interest of our local businesses.

We recommend a cap of 15% to allow these businesses to continue to operate. The Chamber is concerned for our members. We must preserve some profit for restaurants so they can serve the West Seattle residents who rely on restaurants to cook their meals and allow these businesses to retain their employees.

Reducing these fees would encourage more restaurants to get off the sidelines and reopen if they knew they could pay a fair commission rate. Our goal is to Bring back much needed jobs and stability to our service industry workers.

Sadly, these companies have stood firm around not negotiating fees since the start of this crisis, all these businesses are asking for is a fair charge.

We hope that you will help make this right .

Respectfully,

Julia Jordan

CEO, West Seattle Chamber of Commerce