No, I Don’t Do DoorDash — This Is Catering Delivery and It’s a Whole Different Beast!
If you’ve never heard of ezCater, CaterNation, or why a platform can ghost you while smiling, buckle up!
So before we get into the juicy stories — the sabotage, the shady dispatch games, the platforms that ghost you with a smile — let me break down *what this world even is*.
I don’t work for DoorDash, Instacart, or Uber Eats. I’m not delivering three tacos to someone named Jayden in a towel. I’m in the **catering gig economy** — where you deliver big orders, usually to businesses, schools, hospitals, or bougie offices that love “team lunches.”
🥡 Meet the Middlemen: ezCater & Cater Nation
**ezCater** and **Cater Nation** are platforms that connect people (usually businesses) who want to place large catering orders with restaurants that want to be seen.
Think of it like Airbnb, but for sandwich platters and pasta trays.
Restaurants actually **pay** to be on these platforms — like a monthly subscription. On top of that, the customers using these platforms (especially on ezCater) are charged **service fees** to place orders. So both sides are paying to play.
🚗 Enter ezDispatch — That’s Where We Come In
When restaurants can’t (or don’t want to) handle delivery themselves, they use **ezDispatch**. This is where **independent drivers like me** step in — folks who are signed up with platforms like **Zifty**, **Dlivrd**, **DeliverThat**, and others.
These guys pull jobs from ezDispatch, which connects to the restaurant’s ezCater backend (called ezManage). The restaurant books a driver, a delivery is assigned, and the gig appears on our end — *if we’re lucky enough to get it before a bot does* (but more on that chaos later).
🧳 Why Just Catering?
This is the only niche I work in. No shade to the hustle — but I’ve personally found the catering life calmer, cleaner, and slightly less soul-crushing (depending on the day).
No hot & cold fries. No soda fountain spills. Just trays, timing, and sometimes trauma.
This blog isn’t a recommendation. It’s a documentation.
Welcome to **Unbagged** — let’s unpack everything.