There was a time in the eighties and early nineties, when eating out was deemed as an occasion. Middle-class families made it a point to eat out at restaurants, usually the Chinese restaurants, at least once or twice a month.
This gradually changed in the nineties, when the number of restaurants grew. The competition led to lower prices of dishes. Some upscale restaurants and hotels began to offer buffets at fixed rates.
With a rising number of students and young professionals going to the eateries for lunch and snacks between classes and work, the restaurants offered various cuisines, themes and value meals in the 2000s.
The highlight of this decade in the restaurant sector is the fad of eating in, rather than eating out.
Diners now do not want to negotiate the traffic congestion, the dust and the noise pollution to get to their eateries.
What came next was something that revolutionised the process of eating from restaurants.
Different menus of restaurants are available to any user of personal computer, smartphone and other handheld devices in Dhaka and few other cities. From the comfort of the device and while sitting in his or her house, office or anywhere else, a user can order the desired food through the mobile app or website and then go about doing his/ her work.
The trend has been helping people since 2013, when Hungrynaki.com was launched. Their service was simple: through their website or mobile phone-based app, a user can select a restaurant from the list of partner restaurants and order the dishes from the menu available. Within 45 minutes, the order will reach the user's location. The user can pay the food price and the delivery fee of Tk 45 in cash, via Bkash or Rocket, or through credit or debit card.
Hungrynaki currently has more than 700 restaurants signed up with them in Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong simultaneously.
Hungrynaki's top competitor providing the same service through mobile-based app has been Rocket Internet's Foodpanda, which started operations in Bangladesh in 2014. Currently, Foodpanda has around 600 partner-restaurants in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. Foodpanda charges Tk 50 per delivery.
There are other local food delivery services as well. But these are not as popular as these two as they charge higher delivery fee.
These players are likely to face some tough competition in the coming days as Pathao, Bangladesh's first ride-sharing app, initiated 'Pathao Food' from January of this year.
Pathao will be a formidable competition in the delivery market due to two reasons. Primarily, the prevalent food delivery services have a limited number of personnel making the deliveries. Pathao already has a significant number of freelancer cyclists and motorcyclists. As such, the same rider who can take a passenger from one destination to another can also opt to deliver the food within a certain area and closest to the user requesting the food.
Secondly, Pathao Food has not limited itself to the top and medium range restaurants and cafes only. At the moment, there are more than 2,500 restaurants and eateries under the Food section of the Pathao app. The delivery charge varies between Tk 60 to 70.
Pathao food is currently only available in Dhaka. But since Pathao has extended itself to Chittagong and Sylhet as well, it is a matter of time before Pathao Foods reach these destinations.
There is also a buzz that Uber might soon launch their food delivery service, Uber Eats, in Dhaka. Uber Eats is likely to have a different approach to the delivery service spectrum.
Besides helping the consumers, the emergence of these players is also aiding the restaurants and eateries to earn revenue not just from their in-house customers but also from those who are ordering from home.
The success of the services has even driven some big fast food names to initiate their own delivery services within a limited radius from their location.
According to Dhaka Foodiez, an online community of Food lovers, only in Dhaka, there are currently more than 1,250 proper restaurants serving global and local cuisines. Around 4.5 million people are employed in the sector in Dhaka alone.
Information from the Bangladesh Hotel and Guest House Owners Association in 2017 estimated that the total investment in the number of restaurants only in Dhaka could be worth as much as Tk 45 billion.
The changes in the eating habits of consumers from restaurants are fortunately not affecting the restaurants. Rather, it is likely that the number of restaurants would increase in the near future through innovations that can bridge the distance between the consumers and the restaurants.
That being said, innovations should not have the ability to restrict people within the confines of their houses and offices.
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