to turn away my takeaway?

[FlayOtters]

Opinions please! My friend thinks me and my husband are being completely ridiculous but I'm adamant we're in the right (but happy to be told otherwise!)
Ordered an Indian takeaway on ubereats for tonight (50% off woop woop!). Asked for scheduled delivery 7.40-8. All good, order accepted, confirmation email, your order will be delivered at 7.40.
Come 6.10 there is a ring on the bell and it's our food! We were just starting to try and calm our 5 and 2 year olds down before bedtime started, and were basically nowhere near ready for dinner! So we said "no". The man just stood and stared at us like we were utterly insane. After about a minute of silent staring he went back to his car to call his manager and then yelled out of the window that he'd come back later and drove off.
Now I know there is a reasonable chance he'll just being the exact same food back (possibly with added spit), but I think the principal remains. What is the point of being able to schedule delivery if it's totally ignored?? We wanted hot, fresh food at about 8 after the boys were asleep and we could relax. My friend happened to call a minute ago and basically said that I was being ridiculous and should've just taken the food. Who's right?
YABU - just take the damn food whenever it comes, Otters!
YANBU -you paid for the food to be delivered at a certain time, it's reasoab to want it at that time.

I don't order for a specific time for exactly that reason. I just order when I'm almost ready to eat.

Isn’t it dodgy to reheat rice( presuming there was rice in the order)?

Just wanted to pop back on and clarify that no one in this situation was angry, rude, sad, slamming doors or getting evem slightly as het up as some of the responders here!
In future I'd probably just take it and reheat but in the moment I was a bit hassled with 2 kids hanging off me and thought they shouldn't have given the option of a time if they weren't going to honor that 🤷🏼‍♀️ as I said, happy to accept I was being unreasonable.
For what it's worth we live in the countryside and if we'd ordered 'when we wanted it' as a few people had suggested, it could've taken anywhere from 20 mins to 2 hours to come, hence why we thought we'd try and get organised.

I don’t, so I would’ve sent it away too!

I want my Indian hot and fresh not reheated an hour and a half later.

If they offer the option to select a delivery time, then they should adhere to that, or take it back and re-deliver freshly prepared food when it was supposed to be delivered.
I bet the restaurant is the one who loses out on the cost of replacing the food too, even if it was ubereats mistake.

Feel for the driver, he won't have gotten paid for the delivery and lost out.

Would i want to refuse it and expect re delivery of fresh made food when it was supposed to arrive? Yes.
Would i actually do it? No. I'd accept the order, and eat it as soon as possible, and end up disappointed. I'd feel too guilty messing the restaurant and driver around, even though it wasn't my mistake, and i would be wary of getting tampered with food in the redelivery. I'm the same in restaurants when my order is wrong, i feel too awkward to complain.

This

And be flexible when it doesn't go as planned.
I'm finally starting to figure this out with my 2 under age 5.

She doesn’t want to bloody well microwave it. She used a scheduled delivery service that they offer. It wasn’t a favours or a special treat.

You may as well ask why someone who doesn’t get the bread and milk with their supermarket order hasn’t got flour, yeast and a cow.

YABVU with how you treated the delivery service as it has nothing to do with them and you were very rude. You wouldn’t BU for complaining to the restaurant if it really bothers you as it was their error. Personally I’d have accepted the food and just re-heated it as it’s a bit annoying but probably just a mistake. Your description of this makes you sound very hard work.

How would the curry 'be fine' two hours later? It would be cold.

You do not “have” to do anything of the sort.

No, I'd expect it to be cooked fresh & delivered in the window I booked it to be delivered in.

We don't... it's not that uncommon

“No food himself”? Why would he have got food? He’s not the bloody customer!

If he got a bollocking, it was because he cocked up and delivered 90 minutes early. You tend to get criticised in your job if you don’t do it well.

When we were teenagers at university a lot of the boys did food delivery for many local takeaways. I would never have food redelivered (I rarely get food delivered) as it was common practice for their colleagues often adult drivers (sometimes the shop owners or relatives of the shop owners) to spit and worse in the food for pain in the arse customers. I’d have asked for a refund or accepted it.

It put me off food deliveries as it seemed far to common. And yes my friends saw colleagues/bosses do this or wipe their hand down their trousers and then onto the food (in the case of solid food - kebab / burger etc). Fucking gross.

My mate worked for environmental health - now she’s an interesting dinner party guest and has some interesting stories.

But none of that is relevant. It’s nothing to do with the OP if other people can’t afford takeaway. It’s nothing to do with the OP if other people are struggling financially. If half your online shop is missing, do you shrug your shoulders and say “Oh well - a lot of people can’t afford do an online shop, so I should be grateful”?

She paid for a service. She didn’t get it. That’s literally all that counts!

Were they forced at gunpoint to offer that discount?

Companies offer discounts to attract customers. Nobody forces them into it. But it isn’t going to work as a customer acquisition strategy if you can’t fulfil the orders.

But that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter if the OP ordered it an hour before the kids went to bed, an hour after they went to bed or before she even conceived.

What matters is, she ordered a takeaway for a specific time - as per the service offered. It arrived 90 minutes early. That’s what was wrong. Whether you or I or anyone thinks she should have timed it differently is irrelevant. If you order a takeaway for 7pm and it arrives at 5.30, that’s wrong. If you order it for 8pm and it doesn’t arrive until 9, that’s also wrong. They’re different types of wrong, but it wasn’t unreasonable to order for 7 or 8.

You are overusing the word “frankly”.

If a restaurant doesn’t want to offer specific delivery times, they don’t have to. Just as they don’t have to open at certain times, or allow dogs, or accept luncheon vouchers.

If you can’t provide a service, don’t offer it.

Thank you Captain Grammar.

"no food himself" was a joke. Sorry if that went completely over your head.

Are you clear on what a delivery driver actually does for a living?
Are you under the impression he was cooking the food himself, or are you saying he should have just waited with the food ready - and rapidly cooling dow, for 90 minutes?

You're being silly. Just accept the food, if it needs a bit of reheating then so be it. Its not a bit deal.

Then lodge complaint with the restaurant/ubereats eats etc. They'd probably give you some sort of refund anyway.

No, it didn’t go over my head. It just wasn’t even vaguely amusing.

Yes, I do under what a delivery driver’s job is. It’s to deliver at the appointed time. He failed to do this. I don’t see why any of us should be sympathising with him for that.

Dear God.... 🤦‍♀️
The kitchen cooked the order and sent it out. The driver has no control over that.

I'd say it's more a case of under-using the comma.