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.

You may as well have reheated

I doubt they cook the curry “fresh”. They probably make in advance and reheat prior to service / delivery.

I don’t know about any bodily fluids they added to your second delivery, but imagine it must be difficult to come up with fresh in a busy restaurant

The uber eats driver would have literally zero idea what time you’d ordered it for. He gets a pick up thing on his app, picks it up and delivers it.
Not taking it making out like it’s his fault is really strange

If I buy takeaway I don't want to reheat. We don't have a microwave either. Leave it in the oven for an hour and it's ruined.

I had complained to the restaurant and cancelled - 1.5 hours upfront is not ok. 20- 30 minutes before, yes, fine.

The restaurant does have to offer a specific time or discount. Takeaway in 2026 isn't cheap and it's not unresonable to expect better.

Personally I wouldn't have answered the door. If the restaurant/driver called, I'd take the phone call somewhere the driver couldn't hear (ie nowhere near the front door!) and say - VERY politely - that I am incredibly sorry, but I'm not home from work yet, and wouldn't be until 7.40; hence the reason for ordering the delivery for the time I did.

99% sure they'd bring you a fresh one at the time you'd actually ordered it for - and sans extra bodily fluid - due to it being clear that you weren't physically able to accept the order and reheat it (not that you should have to) due to their error.

Even if they didn't, you'd definitely be entitled to a refund given you asked for it at a certain time and they came way earlier when you "weren't in". Which could be proven by the time of the phone call, and the time you'd ordered it for.

If they didn't call, I'd call them at perhaps 8.30 enquiring as to the whereabouts of the takeaway, and all the stuff I said above would still apply

I'm so curious about the people saying this is very rude? Specifically what is rude? I'm sure the OP would have much fatter the food had arrived at the right time and she could have greeted the driver with smiles but the company messed off. We all have to deal with minor issues at work. I don't think it's rude when people complain to me if my workplace has messed up. It's not personal and just part of work.

Frankly I’d do what I could to make life easier for the poor bloody delivery person on minimum wage. You almost always have to zap delivered food anyway.

People also order them for a specific time because they won’t even be in until that time so what would have happened in that case? I’ve done it before, I order it on the train home from work knowing no one will be in for at least an hour. So yeah I don’t think you were BU.

Only on MN can there be a thread about people in Afghanistan starving and having to sell their children for food and another where the (50% off) food is delivered too early and it's rejected as a result.

OP provided further information about how she rejected it since the first post, it sounded like she just stared at him, gave him a NO and closed the door. If she’d explained that she politely said ‘sorry but we’ve ordered for a specific time and we’re unfortunately unable to take it in right now’, I wouldn’t have found it rude.

Accept the food and reheat. It’s annoying but it’s just food. And yes, you were rude.

I would have explained the time slot you had booked the delivery for, asked him to come back, and explained why it wasn’t convenient for you to accept the food

This.

*FlayOtters *How rude to just say no and just stare silently at him like that. How entitled are you that you think its okay to treat someone like that. So hostile?

She didn't complain though. She said no and just stared at him. It is so rude. And it's hostile.

please read my updates. I said "no" for brevity on here. Obviously I (very politely!) explained that we had ordered it for 1.5 hours later and didn't want it right now.
Thanks for all the opinions. To the people who said they'd have just taken it in and reheated it, youre probably right.
To the people who query why it wouldn't have been just as enjoyable to take it in and eat with kids who had already had dinner while simultaneously trying to get them ready for bed..... sorry if this makes me a terrible mother but that sounds AWFUL.
To the people who have somehow conflated this minor pondering about a takeaway delivery with me being responsible for not interested in global hunger or poverty. I have no words. 😐

The kitchen may have cooked it and sent it out, but the driver is the one who delivers it, so it’s the driver the OP told to take it back. Was she just meant to accept the mistake to spare his feelings?

You were rude to the poor delivery guy. I'm with your friend here. The delivery guy didn't know the time slot. Yabu

I don’t think you were rude. We have sent a delivery back that was delivered a hour too early - it wasn’t something that could easily be reheated or kept warm. We had ordered it for when our son would return home from a long journey. Fortunately the driver realised it was early from his ticket and took it back without question🤷‍♀️ plus we order quite regularly from them…..

Although I agree with this, the flavours in curry develop over time. I would have accepted it, and made a note to self: don't order from there again/if I do order from there again, reiterate delivery time.

You sound a right madam.
Use a microwave and stop getting so bunched up about stupid things
You got 50% off
Gratitude in the attitude

If you pay for a time slot for any service that’s when it should arrive. If our grocery shopping arrives even ten minutes early they call us before hand to check it’s okay. I recently ordered a taxi to take me to hospital for surgery and it arrived an hour early. They called to say they had arrived and were then annoyed with me when I said I was still packing my suitcase.

It’s a little annoying and for all they knew you weren’t even going to be home at that time . Despite this I would have just taken it instead of making a big mountain out of a molehill. If they throw it out and make a fresh one for you that’s an awful waste of food when it can be microwaved. And things like samosas and naans crisp up grand in the air fryer . I think you need to get over yourself a bit to be honest .

I wouldn’t have accepted it, but I would have told them not to bother at all and I’d have ordered from somewhere else as I wouldn’t have risked getting the same food back.

We have our shopping delivered and they had a spell where they would turn up an hour early. It wasn’t always convenient as we were eating dinner, sometimes not even home, had visitors, busy doing something etc, but they seemed to think we should be happy because they were early. Early isn’t always good, you pick a time for a reason.

“Gratitude”? For a promotional price the company chose to offer?

I think this is an ubereats design flaw, as it's happened to me before too. I suspect that orders just come through without it being flagged or highlighted clearly that it's a scheduled order, and because 99.9% of orders are not scheduled, the takeaways just process them automatically.

I'd have just taken it in, kept in warm in the oven and enjoyed it when we were ready.

I do have children.