Here in the suburbs, about an hour from NYC, our area has definitely changed, since the pandemic. That's when not just mobile ordering blew up, but door dash.....or food delivery. Before the pandemic, mass delivery of prepared food was mostly still taking place in the businesses that provided delivery themselves.....pizza places and some Chinese restaurants. But now, it's everywhere. My niece and nephew (high schoolers) and their friends routinely door dash stuff from starbucks....and every casual restaurant in our area. Also for stuff like candy/snacks at places like
Walmart 7-11. It's a whole new deal in our area...creates a lot more traffic.
In my little town, that is full of restaurants, around lunchtime, the town is full of illegally parked cars with their flashers on....which are door dashers picking up lunch delivery to take to the work-from-home crowd. It's the people who worked in the city and now work from home, and I guess never brought lunch to the office? Because my husband has been working from home since 2005 and has never once ordered lunch delivery. He eats something I make him before I head to work (1/2 sandwich or a salad), makes himself a protein smoothie, or has some leftovers from dinner the night before.
I suppose this type of change would have eventually become more common in our area, but certainly not as quickly and pervasively because of the hybrid work schedules that most people around here now have. Many simply never went back to the office, and in many cases....the office is no longer there. Well, the office in the city is there, just sitting empty and not leased.
While I don't love that change, I do use mobile ordering whenever I can. I use Panera regularly and it's nice to just place my order on their App and then walk in about ten minutes later and my order is sitting there in the pick-up area.