Grubhub is a food delivery service that connects you to some of your favorite local restaurants and provides door-to-door delivery service from the ease of a mobile app or website.
But the order doesn’t always go perfectly.
Grubhub has a customer service team, but in this article we will guide you on the appropriate times to reach out to Grubhub customer support, when to contact the delivery driver or restaurant directly, and how to cancel your order from the app.
This guide will save you time when trying to figure out how to get the help you need when ordering from Grubhub (or its partner Seamless, which has all the same restaurants and interface as Grubhub).
A Quick Guide to Grubhub
Grubhub is an app that identifies your location and then provides a list of restaurants in your area that you can order delivery from.
You can save your favorite restaurants within the app, and it has handy features like a memory of your last order so you can quickly order your favorite dinner at the end of a long day at work.
After you order, the app connects you with a local courier who will head to the restaurant, pick up your food, and deliver it to your door.
The app accepts all major credit cards, and what’s nice about the app compared to traditional delivery service is you can order food, pay, and tip all from within the app.
No relaying credit card numbers over the phone or finding a few dollars to give a tip, and no having to get in the car to drive like you would have to do for pickup orders.
It’s all automatically built into the app, which allows you to get food to your house quickly, with a few touches on a smartphone.
Based in Chicago, the company first started as an alternative to paper menus, then pivoted to working as a food delivery platform.
After merging with Seamless, the company started aggressively expanding cities across the United States, and is now available all over the country.
If you want to try the app and have never used it before, use the promo code “GIVING12” and that will allow you to get started with $12 off your first order of $15 or more.
How to Cancel Grubhub Orders
Canceling an order once you’ve already made it from Grubhub is difficult, but not impossible.
The best way to prevent having to cancel an order you didn’t want is to not place your order in the first place.
Be careful when you proceed to checkout and allow them to charge your credit card.
The app clearly states your delivery fee and order total before you submit, so meticulously review the food you want before you accept the order and send it out for delivery.
The reason it’s difficult is because Grubhub is just a middle man in this situation, and once delivery orders go through to a restaurant, odds are they’re going to start making your food quickly.
Once your order is placed, the restaurant doesn’t have any liability to cancel the order and waste the food.
Odds are that they’re going to want payment for the food they make.
Which means you have to act quickly if you want to cancel an order!
Have your order number at the ready, then head to the help page on the Grubhub website.
There they have answers to FAQs, but at the bottom they have two links to reach out directly to customer support representatives.
One is a live chat and one is a phone call, and if you need to cancel an order, you’re going to want to reach out as quickly as possible.
The two links look like this:
Once you connect with a representative, give them your order number and explain to them that, if possible, you’d like to cancel your order.
They will try to make it happen by reaching out to the restaurant.
You might get lucky.
When to Contact the Restaurant vs. Grubhub
If you have questions about your Grubhub order, there are certain times you should reach out to Grubhub and certain times you might want to reach out directly to the restaurant.
It’s helpful to know which times are best for which situations.
For example, if you have questions about credit card information, promo codes, gift cards, an error with your order confirmation email, why they don’t accept cash orders, or anything to do with the process of payment or app usage, these are all really good questions for Grubhub.
They are the platform for everything to do with the act of the food getting to you from the restaurant.
On Grubhub.com they have an FAQ section that answers common questions about delivery status, referral credits, delivery fees, and more.
Navigating it can answer most questions you might have about the app and its service.
They’ve also built a map within the app that is constantly providing real-time updates on the status of your order and an updated delivery time.
It looks like this, and is available right in your app after you order:
So for any and all things delivery, reaching out to Grubhub is your best bet.
If you have questions about the food itself, that’s going to be best answered by reaching out to the restaurant directly.
Restaurants will know far more about things like possible allergies and replacement options than anyone from Grubhub customer care will.
Likewise, if you ordered a certain menu item and want to swap it out for something else that is priced similarly, you do always have the option to contact the restaurant.
To find out their contact information, just look at the restaurant in Grubhub, and a working phone number and address will always be listed directly underneath the restaurant name.
How to Leave Instructions for Your Delivery Person
If you want to give specific instructions to your delivery driver, you can leave a short note when checking out.
For people with a street address that doesn’t show up correctly on map apps, or if you have special delivery instructions, you can leave a note to go along when you provide your address.
The special instructions go here when entering your address upon checkout:
What’s nice is that if you save that address in the app, those special instructions will be applied to all future orders.
This will allow you to do ASAP ordering, where you can select from your favorite meals at your favorite restaurants and get it delivered to any of your saved addresses quickly.
When to Reach Out to Grubhub Online Support
We’ve covered when to read FAQs, when to reach out to the restaurant, and how to leave special instructions for your delivery driver.
There’s one more area of support that you might need, and that is technical support.
If you forgot password, or are having trouble logging into Grubhub due to issues with your browser’s password manager, or possibly because it says you have an unworkable password combination due to a lack of uppercase and lowercase letters, it’s a good idea to reach out directly to Grubhub support.
Because they are wary of possible phishing attempts and other security risks and want to make sure your personal information and credit card details are secure, you should be prepared to answer questions about your identity and account as a precautionary measure.
When you contact Grubhub, have your phone number and contact information ready.
If you are having website issues at grubhub.com or getgrubhub.com, they may ask you if you are using Safari, Internet Explorer 11, Chrome, or Firefox.
If you are on the app, they might ask if you are using an iOS or Android phone to order.
To start a live chat or phone call with a customer support member, head to their website.
The phone number is 1-877-585-1085.
Note: Email communications from the Grubhub team, especially with regards to a reset password, may end up in your spam folder, so be sure to check that before you call back.
The customer care team can answer other questions, too, about setting up corporate accounts, how to build safe account passwords, review charges on past orders, and more.
The Right Way to Reach Out to Support
Canceling orders has to be done quickly, but that isn’t the only thing Grubhub customer support can help you with.
The important thing is to know who to reach out to when you have an issue, and then make the right call (or email or live chat) after that.
