Grubhub announces $100 million effort to help local restaurants

Grubhub is the nation's leading online and mobile food-ordering company. Dedicating to moving eating forward and connecting diners with the food they love from their favorite local restaurants, the company's platforms and services strive to elevate food ordering through innovative restaurant technology, easy-to-use platforms and an improved delivery experience. Grubhub is proud to work with more than 40,000 restaurant partners in over 1,000 U.S. cities and London. The Grubhub portfolio of brands includes Grubhub, Seamless, AllMenus, MenuPages, Restaurants on the Run, DiningIn and Delivered Dish. (PRNewsFoto/GrubHub)

In an effort to help local municipalities with their COVID-19 response efforts, Grubhub announced it is temporarily suspending collection of up to $100 million in commission payments from impacted independent restaurants nationwide.

Grubhub officials said the initiative will provide immediate and substantial cash flow relief to qualified independent restaurants — restaurants that make up the majority of Grubhub’s 350,000+ restaurant community and drive more than 80 percent of the company’s orders.

Matt Maloney, Grubhub founder and CEO, called independent restaurants “the lifeblood lifeblood of our cities” who “feed our communities.”

“They have been amazing long-term partners for us, and we wanted to help them in their time of need,” Maloney said. “Our business is their business, so this was an easy decision for us to make.”

Grubhub has also created a fund that will enable proceeds from its Donate the Change program to go toward charitable organizations that support restaurants and drivers impacted by the COVID-19 health crisis. The program will allow diners to round up the change from every order and donate it to the Grubhub Community Relief Fund — with donations from Grubhub+ (and Seamless+) members matched by the company. Grubhub has been raising more than $1 million dollars per month through Donate the Change. Grubhub will work with local city officials to identify the organizations that can utilize the funds and to consider other support programs during the pandemic.