Lincoln delivery service struggling to hire drivers, fit new dining habits 

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Metro Dining Delivery has served Lincoln for the last 15 years, bringing your favorite meals right to your door. But at this point, the company is unsure of its future in Lincoln.

“It’s hard because when they’re hurting, I’m hurting. If a restaurant is not getting business, then I’m not getting business,” David Welch, the owner of Metro Dining Delivery said.

National delivery services, like DoorDash and Uber Eats, have seen a large increase in business amid the pandemic. They have brought in almost double their earnings from 2019.

But that’s not the case for Metro Dining Delivery.

They’re stuck competing against those national services, while also trying to fit into people’s new dining habits.

“People are just not eating out as much, especially when food costs go up. It’s already more pricey for the consumer to just go to the grocery store, while restaurants are even higher. Prices just got a little cost prohibited,” Welch said. “That’s why we have had restaurants shut down like Dino’s, that just closed up.”

When the business has picked up a bit through the pandemic, they have been greeted with a new hurdle – hiring staff. Metro Dining Delivery has struggled with adding drivers to its team.

A couple of weeks ago, they had one driver on the clock for the entire city. In a normal year, they would have had about 15 drivers.

“It’s killed me because I have had to turn off my forms and people lose faith in the business if you have to stop taking orders periodically during the day. But you can only have so many orders up,” Welch said.

Welch has even started driving to make sure orders get delivered.

In other years, the business would have about 50 deliveries a day, but during the pandemic, it’s been more like 25.

“At the very beginning when they were doing the lockdowns, we were kinda busy. But we had to have double the staff, double the dispatchers, and we were manually doing credit cards over the phone, which costs us more money,” Welch said. “By the time we got done, it was a wash for us.”

Welch says he’s not one to normally ask for help, but at this point, he says he’s out of options.

A GoFundMe page has been started to help keep the business afloat.

If you’d like to donate, click HERE.

If you’re looking for a job with Metro Dining Delivery, click HERE.