By:  Mario Mancini

People in New York City love convenience and are willing to sacrifice a lot to have everything available to them at all times. Covid-19 has made grocery delivery just as popular as takeout but the use of storefronts as makeshift share houses for the influx of a large of amount of delivery services has caused controversy. “Grocery delivery apps are looking to satisfy angry neighbors and New York City council members by rebranding their barebones and potentially illegal delivery hubs as high-tech retail locations that are open to the public”, according to The New York Post.

“As the legion of apps — including Gopuff, Getir, Gorillas and Jokr — have launched in the five boroughs over the past year, they’ve gobbled up space for dark stores that was previously occupied by delis and boutiques, turning the spaces into “dark stores” that house groceries and are closed to the public”, Theo Wayt reports.

“Rapid grocery delivery companies have come to realize that a dark store was nothing more than the modern day version of a crackhouse,” Brittain Ladd, a retail consultant who works with rapid delivery companies, told The Post. “They had the ugly covering over the window, people couldn’t go inside if they didn’t work there. It attracted people who would hang out and there were a number of complaints about the noise and the traffic.”

In some instances, The Post observed the floors of delivery hubs littered with trash. In others, delivery workers were seen riding E-bikes and scooters at lightning-fast speeds on city sidewalks. Even the cleanest and most well-organized hubs seem to feature fluorescent lighting and threadbare décor, reports Wayt.

Getir delivery hubs across the city added “Walk-ins welcome” signs to their storefronts in March. Gorillas hubs also removed film from their windows and added “in store pick-up!” signs to their stores in March, as first reported by The Post. GoPuff told The Post its stores have always welcomed walk-in customers, but some of its stores did not have posted “walk-in” hours until recently. Jokr did not respond to a request for comment on whether it accepts walk-ins or plans to add them.

Ladd, the retail consultant, said to The New York Post, that delivery apps must work to make their stores “as inviting as possible” in an effort both to appease the city council and to satisfy neighbors, who may then begin to view the stores as neighborhood establishments rather than bleak eyesores.