sales manager

marketing specialist

delivery driver

operations associate

general manager

Chowbus

Not worth it unless 2 things happen. 1) You schedule a bonus shift and commit to accept all orders within a 4 hour block. (2) accept only local orders less than 8* miles (*at your discretion). I delivered a 13 mile order For a $1 tip + $4 base to a $483,200 house (public records). Never mind the 3 restaurants the customer ordered from. I wasn’t scheduled in a bonus shift. Chowbus do offer $5-$10 extra for long distance except they didn’t tell me the minimum distance is 15 miles until after I completed the order and asked them for the pay adjustment. It’s a Chinese platform catering to East Asian customers. That should give you an idea of the tip to expect. My tips has been average $4 thanks to the 2 decent customer out of 11 so far. The chowbus care team are mostly helpful and attentive but there may be a bit of a language barrier.

The App is easy to navigate. Missing a lot of transparency and features other platforms has though. Drivers are assigned orders. You can see the pickup/delivery location and delivery window. If you want to reject the order, you have to message chowbus care team. Why not just add a decline button? There is currently no service rating system for customer/driver/restaurant . There’s been a couple instances where I’ve arrived at the restaurant but they haven’t started cooking yet. I wish there was an option to note that the order isn’t ready yet. When a customer request  No-contact delivery, you’re suppose to take a photo of the order and send it to both the customer and chowbus care. The option you get when you tap on the customers phone number is to call only. So to send the photo, you’d have to do everything manually. The base pay and tip is a running amount. Meaning, the amount is not separated for each order. So if you get assigned 2 or more orders at the same time going the same direction, it’s a little tricky to figure out which order tipped how much because they automatically get added to the running balance after each delivery. When you’re on an a active delivery, the main menu isn’t accessible unless you close and reopen the app.
Like other platforms, a perk to doing these types of work is flexibility. Do I feel like Chowbus care team sincerely care about their drivers? It depends on who you talk to. Otherwise, you’ll feel like your labor is being exploited. They do not/have not provided/offered any swags/gears. The hiring process was almost instant. I don’t think they do driving record checks. They definitely don’t do background checks. Overall my feeling about driving for chowbus is 50/50. I will limit doing orders over 7-8 miles unless over 15 miles to qualify for the long distance pay. Or try to schedule a bonus shift.

It's an ok job. Yes the back end customer service is poor. Especially here in California. There are east coast dispatchers that have no clue what the rush hour traffic is like. So you may end up spending half of your day in traffic. Unless you assert yourself, dispatchers will try and funnel you out to areas that you aren't comfortable with. Don't expect to hear from customer service within 5 min. as stated in the app. More often than not they will ignore your whole message and gaslight you if you ask for clarification or an updated company policy. If you opt not to take a delivery the dispatchers may arbitrarily take you off the system which may jeopardize a possible bonus. This behavior isn't stated in the contract. The company forgets that we are independent contractors/at will employees and will penalize you(via dropping you from a shift so that you don't get the bonus),if you opt out of a delivery. The company tries to pinch every monetary corner it can. So keep track of your deliveries. If you ask for a financial breakdown you will not get it. There is 0 transparency with this company on that end. Be aware that you may receive ambiguous, run of the mill answers. Not direct clear cut answers. So be ready to be gaslighted into doing a delivery that you may not want to do. Or gaslighted into leaving an issue brought to them alone.The restaurants are wonderful and the clients are great. I enjoy interacting with both sides. I just wish the company would work out the kinks and stop beta testing things that customer service wise and culturally don't work here in California.

This is for driving in the Los Angeles area only.

The job ad they post here says you'll be paid over $20/hr if you drive for these guys. That couldn't be farther from the truth. You're actually losing money driving for them if you consider gas and maintenance.

How it works is that it's a $4 every trip, plus tips. On average, people will tip two dollars, even if you drive 15-20 miles from their restaurant of choice to them(yes, not counting the drive to the restaurant). That is lower than the average total per trip that they tell you in the first email they send. The shortest distance I've had to travel so far is 31 miles for one order. 

They say they're trying to fix the distance, making us not drive so far, but with all the false information they've given me, I can't say this is an honest company. They can't even take the time to get my name right. First impression was an email they sent me had the name as Daniel, not even remotely close to my name. Whoever this Michael was that sent the email was too lazy to even change the name from his copy/paste strategy. That should tell you something about how much the company cares about what they're doing when they can't get the simplest details done correctly.

Long drive times.  Few orders.  Earned less than $6 per hour.  Long wait times at some restaurants.  One order took more than an hour due to distance and wait time.  App gives time when food should be ready but this time is actually meaningless.  Most restaurants have food ready before this time.  So if you wait in the car, you are wasting your time.  But other restaurants are really annoyed if you enter the restaurant early.  You can't win. 
Really silly process compared to other delivery apps.  They message you when an order has been assigned to you.  Then you need press "refresh" on the app to see the order.  Why?  Every message is also sent as an email.  So now drivers are juggling the app, texts and emails at the same time.  Huge waste of time.  

Not a reliable source of income, not great for a side gig either. Most if not all of the money you make driving will probably go back to paying for gas so essentially you'll be working for free. I've heard complaints from restaurants, customers, and other drivers about Chowbus' services while with the company, poor communication being at the top of the list. I hope they can make productive changes in the future but I wouldn't bet on it. Also if you need help with your deliveries, don't! The management team responds at will. 

Been driving with Chowbus for a few months now. I've discovered a lot of really good authentic mom and pop food places that I didn't know about. These places deserve a lot more credit and attention. The people working in them seem to work hard as well.
Usually it's busy enough to justify delivering during the lunch and dinner hours. The pay is decent.. only issue is sometimes distances can be far but I usually get a few orders going to the same place.
The people working in the office there are helpful, response times are good.

Initially drivers we given bonuses along with the delivery fees.   Then they switched it to a $15 an hour minimum wage.  Both of these wages were dependent on drivers scheduling themselves for shifts through the App.  There are not many shift slots available compared to the number of drivers. Last week pay structure went to delivery fees only.   They guarantee $10 per delivery if you’re on the schedule.  I was on the schedule for 4 shifts that were 4 to 5 hours each.   Never got more than 4 orders per shift,  sometimes  only 2 or 3.  That’s   Less than  $8 per hours PLUS gas.   
No good!!!

I've been a delivery driver with Chowbus for around 1.5 years now. Sometimes there's issues with the driver app and some days are better than others, but overall I think a lot of good progress has been made with them. They offer great support and usually respond to questions or order issues within 1-2 minutes. It's pretty clear that they want to keep growing and make the driver app experience better, at least that's what I see from talking to people in the office. As a veteran driver, I can assure you that Chowbus is the real deal and will keep getting better.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Very convenient.. delivery is easy and the hours are yours to dictate.. good pay and its guaranteed  .

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Dealing with traffic during heavy traffic times..I like to stay moving and traffic gets in the way..

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Relaxed and easy going... very well managed..

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Consistent orders to deliver.. in which I like.

I have been working with this company for the last 4 months and I have made great money. I have the right kind of car to use that doesn't eat up my wallet, so I feel that I'm lucky and able to make that great money. I like the freedom of able to take myself off the clock. But recommend working during the bonus hours.  Things have changed as time has gone by with the bonuses but I feel that they have really tried to benefit the drivers with the changes and even ask for our input. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales manager 7 salaries reported	$66,490 per year
Marketing specialist 3 salaries reported	$45,000 per year
Delivery driver 1 salary reported	$24.00 per hour
Operations associate 1 salary reported	$16.50 per hour
General manager 1 salary reported	$4,500 per month

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