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1. Nothing is offered at the basket
What we found: not one takeaway we audited offered a dessert at the basket, and that included the best-rated rivals we compared them with. Optional drinks and sides were rare too. One curry house had 15 drinks and 4 desserts on its menu, and none of its 61 mains offered any of them. Customers only found them by scrolling to the 19th of 20 categories.
The fix: add an optional add-on group to every main, with a drink, a side and a dessert. Keep it optional: required choices slow the order down. It's the same job on Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, and it's one of the few changes that can raise the value of an order without more customers.
2. The photos are on one app and not the other
What we found: a takeaway would have a fully photographed menu on one app and almost nothing on the other. One had photos on 130 of 134 dishes on Just Eat but on 1 of its 120 Deliveroo dishes. Another had 64 of 65 on Just Eat and 4 of 55 on Deliveroo. The photos already existed; they'd just never been copied across.
The fix: copy the photos and descriptions you already have to every app, best sellers first. Deliveroo's Hub shows a Menu Completeness score based on photos and descriptions. The strongest rival we found kept one menu synced across both apps through a menu-management tool, so photos and prices matched everywhere. See Deliveroo's photo guidelines.
3. Dishes are spelled the way nobody searches
What we found: house spellings of common dishes hide them from search. One takeaway didn't appear on Just Eat for "lassi", "haleem", "doner", "chapli kebab" or "reshmi kebab", all of which it sells, because its menu spelled them differently. Its rival two streets away came up 4th for lassi and 2nd for haleem. Another didn't appear for "doner" because the menu said "Donner", and another wasn't found for "wrap" despite having a wraps section.
The fix: put the spelling customers type in the dish name, and keep your own spelling in the description. Then search for your five best sellers on each app, from a postcode near you, and check that you appear.
4. Prices are different on every app, in both directions
What we found: prices differed between Deliveroo and Just Eat in almost every audit. One takeaway had 51 of 91 matching dishes at different prices, up to 39% apart, some dearer on Deliveroo and some on Just Eat. Another listed Deliveroo prices at about double its Just Eat prices, with a permanent 50% off on top.
The fix: charging more on an app with higher commission can be a sensible choice. Differences that run both ways usually mean the menus are kept separately and have drifted apart. Decide on a rule, such as "Deliveroo is 10% higher", and apply it to every dish. Customers who compare apps notice.
5. Reviews go unanswered
What we found: owners almost never replied to recent Google reviews, including 1-star reviews about cold food, missing items, refunds, hygiene and food poisoning. Where there were replies, they were old.
The fix: reply to every 1- and 2-star review from the last three months, then keep up within 48 hours. Uber Eats says customers who get a reply and a promotion are 23.2% more likely to order again. See how to improve your delivery app rating.
6. The Just Eat stars hide the problem
What we found: every takeaway we audited showed 5 stars on Just Eat, including one rated 3.6 on Google and 3.7 on Deliveroo. Just Eat's public rating is the median of the last 12 months of order ratings, so a 5 only tells you that at least half of orders were rated 5. An owner who only checks Just Eat sees nothing to fix.
The fix: judge your food and service by Deliveroo, Google and your Just Eat reviews, not the Just Eat headline. More on how Just Eat ratings work.
7. Recent reviews have slid, and the headline hasn't caught up
What we found: the newest reviews were often well below the rating customers see. At one takeaway the newest 20 Google reviews averaged 2.05 against a 3.6 headline, with 13 of the 20 at 1 star. At another they averaged 2.9 against 4.1. A headline rating is a long-run average, so by the time it drops, the problem has been there for months.
The fix: once a month, read your newest 20 reviews on Google and each app, and average them yourself. If they're below your headline, find the common complaint and fix that first.
8. Just Eat's default description is still there
What we found: every Just Eat listing we checked, including the rivals, still showed Just Eat's template text, such as "delicious Indian food" or "Fancy good old fish and chips?". One curry house that has served its city for decades says so on social media, and nowhere on the apps.
The fix: write two or three lines of your own: what you're known for, how long you've been going, and your best-known dish. It's the one place on the app where you can say why you're different.
9. One business, several names and a dead listing
What we found: one fish and chip shop traded under three different names across Google, Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, and had a disabled second Deliveroo listing. Another had renamed itself on its hygiene registration but nowhere else. A third had an Uber Eats store with more than 1,000 ratings showing as "No longer available".
The fix: use one name everywhere, matching the sign over the door, and ask each platform to remove duplicate or dead listings. Customers who like you on Google need to be able to find you on the app they order from.
10. Google sends customers nowhere
What we found: takeaways with a working ordering website had no "Order online" button on Google. None had written their own business description. Some websites linked from Google were down, and others showed a "suspected unsafe site" warning on BT broadband, on the very link Google uses for the menu.
The fix: open your own Google profile on a phone and tap every link. Add the "Order online" link, write a description, and if your website has a problem, point the menu link at one of your app listings until it's fixed.
11. Opening hours don't match
What we found: in most audits, Google's opening hours didn't match the delivery hours on the apps. Google said one shop opened at 2pm when Just Eat delivered from 3pm; another rival's Google hours started at 9:30am while its Just Eat deliveries started at 4pm.
The fix: if delivery hours differ from shop hours, say so on Google: Google profiles can show separate delivery hours. Customers who try to order at a time Google says you're open, and can't, often don't try again.
12. Fixing the listing before the rating
What we found: in one city, the takeaway we audited and its rival passed exactly the same number of checks. The audited takeaway even had more photos and more add-ons. But the rival ranked 1st on Just Eat for its area and ahead in every neighbouring Deliveroo area. What it had was a Deliveroo rating 0.7 higher, nearly three times as many Just Eat ratings, a better hygiene score and a standing discount.
The lesson: the apps don't publish exactly how they rank restaurants, but ratings feature in what they do say. If your rating is well below your rivals', photos and add-ons alone are unlikely to close the gap. Fix the food, the replies and the hygiene score first. See how to rank higher on Just Eat and on Deliveroo.
How we audit a listing
Every audit runs the same list of yes-or-no checks (57 today), in 10 areas. Each one is a fact from a public page, so anyone can repeat it and see it change once it's fixed:
- Identity and consistency
- Menu content
- Basket and upsell
- Price and offers
- Speed and reliability
- Reputation
- Google profile and website
- Hygiene and trust
- Visibility and search
- Social and competition
We then pick a comparable takeaway nearby, usually the most-reviewed one of the same type, and score it on the same checks, so the owner can see exactly where they're ahead and behind. See a full sample audit.
Where the data comes from, and the limits
- Who we audit: independent takeaways, not chains, whose ratings or recent reviews suggest something is wrong. This is a picture of what goes wrong on struggling listings, not of every takeaway.
- Deliveroo and Just Eat menus: read from each app's own menu data, counting only dishes in visible menu categories and leaving out drinks. Add-ons come from the same data that builds each dish's pop-up.
- Search and position: Just Eat's public restaurant and dish search for nearby postcodes, and Deliveroo's restaurant lists for neighbouring areas, in the order customers see them.
- Google: the star breakdown and the newest 20 reviews. They're a sample, not the full history.
- Uber Eats: its pages ask for an automated check, so we use Google's listings of those pages and treat them as less certain.
- Hygiene: the public food hygiene registers, matched on address.
- No revenue estimates. Working out lost sales from public data needs order numbers and margins we can't check, so we don't.
Sources
- Just Eat help centre: how do ratings work
- Just Eat help centre: how Just Eat organises the restaurant list
- Deliveroo help: your new Hub homepage (Menu Completeness)
- Deliveroo help: replying to customer reviews
- Uber Eats help: merchant ratings
- Food Standards Agency: food hygiene rating data API
Restaurant Hero is independent. We're not part of, or endorsed by, Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats.