Calgary restaurant skips tipping issue and goes in-house delivery

Tired of ongoing tipping issues in Calgary and high delivery service costs, one Calgary restaurant has skipped the issue and dashed to an alternative, free in-house delivery.

The family-owned business that has operated in the Bowness area for over 40 years, the little Italian eatery, Bona Roma, is known for its signature dishes like lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, Ceasar salad and calzones.

Eric Peterson, who has been a loyal customer at Bona Roma for many years now, says the good old way of food delivery by the restaurant itself is the best option.

“I am a big fan of their Calzones, and you can’t find them all over the city, so I have to come here, and now this free delivery offer is exciting,” Peterson said.

“Honestly, I’d rather deal directly with the restaurant than any of the other services. I like it.”

Owner and Manager at Bona Roma, Colby Graham, say they shifted to in-house delivery due to costly delivery services and their drivers’ issues.

“Skip was just gouging us on every order, taking 25 percent off everything. It was ridiculous,” Graham said.

“On top of that, the delivery drivers weren’t taking orders, we would have pizza sitting on top of that oven for up to an hour. It didn’t make sense for us to keep them around if they weren’t going to take our orders because the tips were too small.”

No tip, no delivery, this seems to be an ongoing issue with some Calgary restaurants and delivery drivers.

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Amid the tipping chaos, Graham says the in-house delivery is their way of protecting their business and also their loyal customers.

“The extra cost of the delivery services like Uber, Doordash and SkiptheDishes, for that, our prices would have had to go up on the tablet for us, to be able to continue to use them, which we didn’t want,” Graham said.

“We want to keep away from that. So everything now that’s in-house, it’s all same prices, it doesn’t change with the free delivery option.”

Graham’s father bought the restaurant from his extended family in 2019, and since then, the four-some have put their heart and soul into this local eatery. The two manage the deliveries, though when one is cooking, the other one delivers, while Graham’s mother attends to the customers and manages the accounts.

Colby Graham, left, poses for a photo alongside his father Shawn, centre-left, his mother Cindy, centre-right, and his sister Mackenzie in Calgary. (Henna Saeed, CityNews photo)

He says they owe their success to their loyal customers that’s why they came up with the option of in-house free delivery.

“So we’ve worked it out that we can go to 15 kilometres and still keep it free. So we’re able to head all the way up to Springbank there, and it’s still free for our customers,” Graham said.

“We’ve got all family working here. If they’re not family, they’re longtime friends of ours. and it just puts a smile on people’s faces to walk in the door and see that it’s all family-run.”

Graham says they have received a great response from their customers, and in the coming days, they plan to expand their delivery and menu to meet the increased demand.