GrubHub Celebrates 20th Anniversary with Deals

From a humble origin story, Grubhub launched the multibillion-dollar U.S. online food delivery industry, which exploded in popularity during the pandemic, sating the cravings of locked-down consumers for everything from avocado toast to quesadillas.

For millions of Americans, especially millennials, who comprise nearly half the market, ordering dinner online has become part of their daily routine, thanks in no small part to Grubhub.

Founded in 2004 by Chicago software engineers Mike Evans and Matt Maloney as a way to move restaurant menus from the cluttered kitchen drawer to an organized website, Grubhub started with a single merchant — a now-closed Uptown Chinese restaurant — building what would become a national e-commerce platform. Then came a splashy IPO and eventually a buyout worth billions, the classic startup fairy tale.

But as growth slows in the post-pandemic landscape, Grubhub finds itself lagging behind competitors DoorDash and Uber Eats, owned by a Dutch-based company Just Eat Takeaway, which is trying to sell it, and looking to a new CEO to help it regain market share and its startup mojo.

“Grubhub invented the industry in North America,” said Grubhub CEO Howard Migdal, 37, a seasoned online food delivery executive who joined the company last year. “But the reality is, we have really good competitors and customers’ expectations are very high. And we need to meet and exceed those expectations to earn the trust of our customers.”