Getting Food Delivered in Ecuador

I had created a new account with PedidosYa (translated as Orders Now).

Tonight I chose one of my favorite chicken places serviced by Pedidos Ya, namely Gus Pollo (pronounced Goose, although the only poultry they cook is chicken), from a list of more than 50 restaurants.

The process was smooth.  I selected for delivery half a cooked chicken, a bowl of soup -- consomé -- and a large ensalada de col -- coleslaw.  I paid the bill, $13.07, online .. and tipped in cash upon delivery.  The bill included a delivery-service fee, which was less than $1.

A few minutes later, a woman contacted me about my order on my cellphone;  there was a slight problem with a number in my delivery address (which the site's system did not allow me to correct online).  I gave the correction .. and within half an hour, the food arrived at my condo.

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Gus Pollo, by the way, is my favorite of the chicken places in Quito, and I have tried many, including multiple KFC's and many local restaurants and chains.  Gus is a chain operation;  food delivery can also be arranged online by contacting Gus directly.

www.pollogus.comwww.pedidosya.com.ec

PedidosYa lists 14 cities in Ecuador in which they deliver food from restaurants.

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I do not receive financial compensation (nor free food) from any restaurants or delivery services mentioned in this thread.

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I saw on the PedidosYa website that foodies are not restricted to pizza and chicken.

There are Chinese restaurants, known here as chifas, and I found a seafood place or marisquería.

I expect to give the seafood restaurant a try next time.

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I had expected to order from Rappi's by now, as the Colombia-based delivery service had spread to Ecuador's largest cities, according to my web research.

Rappi.com had accepted my delivery address and a supermarket order for about $200.  However, I encountered a digital roadblock when the online system did not take my cédula ID number, and my order was not processed.

Rappi (supposedly in Ecuador's larger cities) delivers restaurant food, supermarket mercancías, store offerings, pharmacy orders and even documents and cash.

I found a customer-service email address for rappi.com in a Reddit post and sent in a message about my problem accessing Rappi service;  however, the address didn't work and I have not yet been able to contact the company successfully.

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If you read this and know a phone number or email address for Rappi, please post it on this thread.

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It's three days later and my first Rappi restaurant order just arrived.  Actually, there were orders from two different restaurants .. and how that happened is part of the strange story of my first day  of getting deliveries from Rappi.

The promising news, when I logged into the Rappi website, was that the company had finally processed my ID number and fully activated my account for deliveries.

I wanted seafood .. and the first place I saw it -- mariscos -- was a plate listed at a chifa here in Quito.

I clicked on the dish.  Then I found another restaurant that specializes in seafood .. and I clicked on two dishes there, the main one being a seafood stew, 'estofado de mariscos'.  I figured I could cancel the chifa order .. so only one restaurant would have to cook for my order.

I was ready to cancel the chifa, pay Rappi and complete the order.  That's when the snafus began.

1.  The system would not allow me to cancel the dish from the first restaurant unless I were to bail out of the whole system and both orders.  I didn't want to do that, so I figured I would buy the extra dish, even though that incurred some additional fees for delivery and service charge.

2.  The estimated time of delivery was 30 to 45 minutes.  But the food hadn't come in almost an hour and a half.  So I went to my backup plan, cooking a 3-egg vegetable omelette with a fresh half of avocado on the side.

3.  Ten minutes later, I had just eaten the omelet and a dish of ice cream when my intercom phone rang.  It was the condo entrance guard informing me that my Rappi deliveries had finally arrived.  What timing.

4.  I went downstairs to the condo complex entrance, where I found two motorcycle delivery men.  The chifa delivery was handed to me with alacrity.  Not so the food from the seafood restaurant.  That delivery agent said he needed my 'código', the code.

5.  What code?  Well, it turns out that if you order more than $30 of food in one Internet order from a Quito restaurant, Rappi issues you a six-digit code.  The 'repartidor' is supposed to get that code from you before handing over the goods.  My guy figured the code had been sent to my phone, and he waited at the street entrance while I went back to my condo unit to get my cellphone.

6.  However, when I brought the phone to him ten minutes later, there was no code evident.  It dawned on us that the code might have been sent via the Internet since I had ordered online.

7.  So he and I headed to my apartment together.  We logged onto Rappi's site .. and he soon found the code.  I asked him to show me where on the website Rappi customer support would be so I could send a message or ask a question in the future.  He found the 'centro de ayuda' but could not find a way to write and send a message to Rappi.

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So that was lunch.  I am saving the Rappi-delivered food for tonight's dinner.  I cleaned up the dishes after the 'almuerzo' of omelette, avocado and ice cream.

cccmedia in Quito

During my recent year in Reno, Nevada, communicating with DoorDash while sheltering in place was a snap.

The 800 number was easily Googled.  Getting a live associate on the phone happened quickly.  The occasional delivery problem was always swiftly resolved to my satisfaction.

Rappi in Quito couldn't be more different with regard to customer service and accessibility.

Even though I succeeded today in having restaurant food delivered, that hasn't translated into getting supermarket foods delivered.

The Rappi online system still doesn't accept my attempt to input my type of ID or the ID number.  I still am unable to find a reliable phone number or email address for Rappi.com.

While I was learning that fact today, Rappi's security department was emailing me to verify that I was using my own computer.  That gave me an email address to respond to -- rappi@rappi.com -- so I used that address and sent Rappi a message about my difficulty with the ID inputting and related inability to use the system for supermarket ordering.

Rappi delivered supermarket foods in Quito until 10 p.m. tonight.  But not to me.

cccmedia in Quito