driver

delivery driver

Caviar

Where to begin? I'll use multiple key factors to break down my review.

1. Company Relations

PROS:
- Caviar (subsidiary to Square, Inc.) carries strong brand image
CONS: 
- Emphasizes top-down communication, with ineffective ways to provide feedback
- Any feedback provided to Caviar treated with indifference; gives minimal effort to address concerns
- PROVIDES NO EVIDENCE when issuing violations to drivers; provides opportunity to defend against violations but rejects all compelling evidence against such violations

Let's say you've voiced your concerns, and your voice isn't being heard. What are your options? Arbitration allows you to mediate your concerns with a "neutral" arbitrator, but you have no legitimate legal recourse, largely because you are an independent contractor, and because you do not participate in "interstate commerce," you are not exempt from arbitration. You must abide by gradually restricting contract conditions until you've violated the conditions enough to terminate your contract. 


2. Delivery Environment

PROS:
- Rare, high-value orders provide a sense of self-worth
CONS:
- Frequently consistent periods of inactivity DURING HIGH-VOLUME PERIODS provides a constant sense of worthlessness

As a delivery partner (courier), you deliver food. Now let's say your order ticket shows only a single hamburger, but the restaurant gives you five burgers. They say it's all for the customer, but you're only being paid for the single burger. You've confirmed with your sluggish live-support agent that the customer will receive exactly what's on the ticket – just one burger. You've now seemingly violated the conditions of your employment by doing exactly what the conditions of your employment have told you to do.

3. Customer Relations

PROS:
- Occasional genuine customers who tip accordingly (~30%)
CONS:
- Frequent customers who do not tip
- No way to update customers on the status of their orders

Customers appreciate when they know what's going on with the food they order. Caviar provides no way for drivers to inform customers when their orders are running late or if there are items that the restaurant cannot provide. Drivers are therefore unjustifiably forced to bear the irritation of customers. And if there are mistakes made to a customer's order, their only avenue of recourse is to contact Caviar customer support, which may be more useless than courier support. 

4. Financial Gain

PROS: N/A
CONS:
- Vehicle wear and tear
- Fuel
- Increasingly minimized driver incentives

Caviar offers a weekly guarantee in some regions. On average, you could make less than, say $11 per order, throughout a week on your deliveries.  Caviar will provide the remaining balance to reach that guaranteed average. However, Caviar may also issue a WEEKLY milestone bonus in your area, meaning if you deliver a certain number of orders per week, you'll receive a small sum of money, thus nullifying your guarantee. Caviar realized quickly that monthly milestones wouldn't coincide with weekly guarantees and issued a quick policy change, at the cost of their drivers' guaranteed pay. 

You may also find that voicing concerns about such issues with Caviar will lead to a reduction in the quantity and quality of orders you increase, though the evidence to support this claim is based on over two years of anecdotal experience. 

Decide for yourself. Or take my advice and spare your dignity and self-respect. Caviar is a shadow of its former self, run by psychopathic degenerates who only value their yearly bonuses.

Supporting three other tech companies within the last 3 years as an Independent Contractor, unfortunately, after 15 deliveries, I have learned that Caviar is the least respected in the industry -- from the restaurant & contractor perspective. The work is virtually the same as being a delivery driver for Uber Eats, Door Dash, or Postmates: pick up prepared food, deliver within a set time (usually 1 hour or less), earn money based on a predetermined algorithm, and use wishful thinking that a tip will appear. The hiring process was simple but involved an investment of $35 for an insulated pizza bag capable of holding 4+ boxes. To date, I have never received an order to accommodate using the bag.
Once onboard the platform, you download the Courier app and get to work! Among the first few deliveries completed, I found the restaurant was located less than a mile away from the customer's address. Roughly $3-$5 was the average earnings per delivery that would take almost an hour to complete. On one particular delivery, the restaurant host had no idea about an order I wanted to claim thus causing a 15 minute delay. And, nothing gets worse when you realize this is the one of the dark avenues of pursuing a job like this -- your time is worth pennies on the dollar. Usually, bonuses are tangled with completing three or more deliveries that are substantially the cover up for customers choosing not to tip. I should mention the app is poorly designed with an interface that bunches too much information into one screen.
The delivery zones extend only into Chicago proper and Northern suburbs so this "gig" applies to mostly city dwellers by bicycle and car. Being from the southwest suburbs, competitors offer the same delivery service at higher pay making this Caviar job land at the bottom of the money making tree. The only positive to take away was the informative alerts when announcing street closures for events such as marathons & parades and for checking IDs on alcohol deliveries. Overall, I recommend finding alternate revenue streams or run the app side by side a competitor's app for maximized earnings potential.

I’ve been a courier for 4 years, I actually was one of the FIRST COURIERS IN PHILADELPHIA, when the office was in a rinky dink apartment in Chinatown lol. I drove, walked, and biked for caviar over the years. It has been plenty of times I quit my 9-5 jobs just to do caviar, wrecks a few cars, went back a 9-5 just to save for another car just to quit and do caviar again. The most I made was $788 a week working less than 25-30 hours a week. Caviar used to have the potential to make up $1500 a week. Now as of summer 2019, it’s not like that anymore. Instead of caviar paying you in full, you’ll get a base rate of $3-$6. For example you’ll get a order to your phone saying expected earnings $17.88 with a base pay of $4, with a expected tip of $13.88 lol. Most people only give $1-$5 tips so you’re looking at a average pay of $5-$9. You’ll realistically average $5-$7 hourly. It’s RARE to make over that nowadays. Before this NEW PAY SYSTEM, I used to have a hourly average of $12-$22 a hour. Now I can barely pay my bills anymore because now the pay is very dependent on TIPS!!!! Not only that, customer care is horrible. They do not care about you, the problem you’re having, or any concerns you have. Customer care used to be the people at the office in Philadelphia, now it’s foreigners overseas who can barely speak English, who also has a quota to try and fire as many couriers as they can because they over-hired. It used to be waiting fee adjustments given when you wait 15 mins past the time the food is supposed to be ready. The other day I waited a hour for 1 veggie burger, asked customer care to cancel it so I can move on to other orders and was not compensated for my time at all for a $3 order! It’s ridiculous. They constantly break so many rules with the 1099 agreement and they’re always getting sued. So you’ll randomly see a extra $300-$500 deposit in you bank account from the lawsuit. It’s just not the same anymore. Your not making any money, thinking about making $5 hourly and then When it’s time to file quarterly taxes you owe 25% lol. Its slaving for pennies.

Like a previous reviewer, I've been working for Caviar as a courier for several years.  They used to pay very well, with added bonuses and incentives, but they have drastically reduced courier pay and incentives (meaning bonuses for completing a certain number of assignments, etc) are so worthless that they're not even worth pursuing.  It's ridiculous that they would decrease rates as much as they have, as gas prices and congestion in NYC has increased exponentially in the past year- even months.  Customers RARELY tip, more than likely because of high delivery fees and it's very confusing for them to figure out how to do it while making their order in the first place.  It's referred to as a "courier bonus" at checkout - are they trying to discourage customers tipping us, or why wouldn't they just use the word "tip"?
Here’s something Caviar doesn’t tell you, either - they don’t tax your earnings, so you pay back BIG TIME at the end of the year.  I had to pay over $1000 in taxes WITH all filed exclusions, through a professional accountant, even though I made less than $18,000 a year working for Caviar.  Not to mention the hundreds of dollars I’ve had to pay out of my own pocket for wear and tear on my vehicle from delivering in NYC every day, which of course, counts for nothing in regards to taxes.  
Finally, the customers are more often than not rich, entitled city gentrifiers who treat couriers like garbage.  It’s not fun, and as I said, they almost never tip.  The Caviar support staff isn’t much better- they’re extremely condescending in their interactions with couriers, which to be fair, is what I would expect from a bunch of tech industry yuppies dealing with us “working class” folks.

Have been delivering with Caviar since 2015 & the pay rates used to be really good. Now they are seriously robbing the couriers for their time and resources for very little pay.  They will send you to a restaurant from where ever you are and the pay does not kick in until the food is picked up even though you've driven through heavy city traffic to get there.  You are very lucky these days if the food is ready when you arrive at the restaurant and if you have to wait more than 5 minutes it decreases the value of the rate you were quoted when you accepted the order. Caviar does not take into consideration that you are putting wear and tear on your vehicle and the cost of gas is over $4 a gallon now. They also do not take into account how dangerous of a job this is in San Francisco with the never ending traffic and competitive Uber & Lyft drivers all battling for road space.  I've been in 2 accidents doing this job trying to get the food delivered for basically chump change.     Another thing to be aware of is their so called percentage increases based on the time of day.  Pay close attention to those as there is really very little difference in the rates that are displayed during time with no percentage increase.   As it stands I would not advise anyone to join until they start paying people fair rates again.  They also need to get a handle on order processing so if the rates do not change at least some time can be saved which is the most important thing.  More time = More money

Working in this toxic workplace is akin to navigating a minefield of hostility and despair. Morale plummets as the pervasive negativity permeates every interaction. Unhealthy competition and backstabbing are the norm, creating an environment of perpetual distrust among colleagues. Leadership, if it can be called that, is conspicuously absent, fostering a culture of confusion and lack of direction. The toxic nature of the workplace is further exacerbated by unchecked favoritism, where promotions seem arbitrary and based on personal relationships rather than merit.

Communication is a casualty of the toxic atmosphere, with secrecy and misinformation breeding like a virus. Employee well-being takes a backseat as burnout becomes an accepted part of the daily grind. The toxic workplace doesn't just compromise professional growth; it corrodes the soul, leaving employees disheartened and demoralized. This is a place where ambition goes to die, and the only thing thriving is the toxicity that permeates every corner of the office.

I started working caviar because I was 18 at the moment not many places to go so caviar allowed me to “become my own boss”. I worked a full time job in the morning and in the afternoons i would turn caviar on. I liked caviar because of the exercise. Caviar allows you to use multiple transportation like a bike in my case. A typical day working in caviar was exciting riding through traffic in Down Town LA all the way to the city of echo park even down at the streets of Santa Monica. Of course there is the down side of working for caviar and that is investing “time” or even “money” on creating and managing your own business. Buying the right equipment can save you a lot of money. The bad part about caviar is that there really isn’t anybody to teach you or walk you through the process on becoming a great courier. On my first day of working for caviar I had to cancel 1 order and somebody really tried to steal my bicycle, but hey all part of the job right.

I love being able to have my own freedom where I can pick up deliveries as I may, no Hassan which is the best part because the app on the phone is easy to use. Bugs on the app here and there but it doesn't effect the work flow, I just didn't like where the customer could order and didn't have a valid phone number at times. The only take away from this job is that sometimes the base rate pay wasn't enough to the fact where the customers wouldn't tip you even on like a $100 order and you only get about $7 for an order. Overall this job is a cool place to work for even with not being tipped at times it doesn't ruin the days where I could work 4 hours and still make $100 bucks

Caviar advertises itself as being a premium delivery service, after working for them for awhile i find nothing premium about the business or the service. Orders are assigned poorly and by a computer that does not take many factors into consideration which heavily affects your pay /hr rate.

Support team is very slow in response when there is an issue causing food orders to get cold which in turn gets label as your fault the order is late. 

Caviar customers see the service as being a bit expensive and tips are VERY rare compared to other delivery services. 

Great job for new people to the area to get to know the city and find some good places to eat. But the longer you're employed with them the more you will feel like you're being pushed out.

I have worked for Caviar for over 3 years. Choosing to work for this company was the best decision i have ever made. Its above all the rest of the like delivery companies in San Francisco. From accepting an order to picking it up and dropping it off runs smooth as silk. No debit cards, no self-ordering, very limited wait time and Support is always aware and available to deal with any issue with delivering. They answer in a matter of minutes. I love that the most. And I've driven for most of the companies in San Francisco to know its the Best!

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