If your dream is to be lying on your couch in your soft pants and eating from a bucket of KFC that you didn’t have to leave the house to get, your deep-fried wishes are about to come true. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County or near Los Angeles that is, and don’t mind paying a hefty delivery fee.
KFC is dipping its toes in the on-demand delivery game for the first time in the U.S., partnering with DoorDash to provide the personnel to actually go to the restaurants and pick up the food starting today, the companies said in a joint news release.
The company says it’ll expand the service into Houston by the end of year and perhaps into other cities later. Customers will make their orders and pay for them through DoorDash’s app or website, and DoorDash then provides the delivery personnel who place and pick up the orders from the restaurant.
You’ll have to be willing to spend some extra cash for the privilege of receiving a bucket of chicken whenever you want it, however: consistent with DoorDash’s other delivery fees, it’ll cost somewhere between $4.99 and $6.99 per order, depending on where you live. The prices of some items will be higher than those in restaurants, but value meals will remain the same price.
It’s worth noting that this is a formal partnership between DoorDash and KFC, which isn’t always the case: other restaurants have recently come out against the service for allegedly listing them on their site without any notification or using their logos without permission. Eater New York noted recently that some restaurants are also ticked off by the increase in price for some menu items as well.
Popular West Coast burger chain In-N-Out is taking it a step further, and is suing DoorDash for listing it on the service’s site without asking first, [PDF], claiming DoorDash is violating the brand’s trademark rights.
Attorneys for In-N-Out claim that DoorDash is using an “Imitation Logo” on its site, which “is intended to, and has, confused consumers as to Defendant’s authority to delivery Plaintiff’s food items.”
Basically, In-N-Out lawyers say DoorDash is making it seem like the two companies have a partnership or an agreement to deliver burgers and Animal-style fries, when that is not the case, the company tells Eater.
“We have asked DoorDash several times to stop using our trademarks and to stop selling our food,” an In-N-Out rep said. “Unfortunately, they have continued to prominently use our trademarks and serve our food to customers who believe that we are responsible for their delivery. Prior to filing the lawsuit, we tried contacting them several more times but they never responded to our phone calls or letters.”
The suit accuses DoorDash of trademark infringement, dilution, and unfair competition.
DoorDash has responded to the news of the lawsuit only by saying the company has “various relationships with different merchants.”
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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