Erin McDowell/Insider
- Chick-fil-A hikes food prices for delivery orders, according to a lawsuit.
- The plaintiffs said that customers had to pay prices up to 30% higher as well as a delivery fee.
- By raising prices, Chick-fil-A "deceives" customers, they said.
Two Chick-fil-A customers have accused the fast-food restaurant of "secretly" hiking up food prices for delivery orders.
Aneisha Pittman, from Newark, New Jersey, and Susan Ukpere, from the Bronx, New York filed a class-action lawsuit on September 28 which said that the chain "deceives" customers by misrepresenting its delivery prices. The New York Post first reported on the filing.
Chick-fil-A did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Like other restaurants, Chick-fil-A has been promoting its delivery service throughout the pandemic. It usually advertises its delivery fee as $2.99 or $3.99, according to the lawsuit.
"These representations, however, are false, because that is not the true cost of having food delivered by Chick-fil-A," Pittman and Ukpere wrote in the lawsuit.
"On delivery orders only, Chick-fil-A secretly marks up food prices for delivery orders by a hefty 25-30%," they said.
Insider reported last July that chains including McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, and Starbucks had been raising menu prices for delivery orders through third-party delivery services. Investment service Gordon Haskett analyzed 25 chains and found that Chick-fil-A had the highest delivery pricing premium, with menu prices 29.8% higher for delivery compared to pickup.
Insider's Kate Taylor found last July that a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich from a restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, cost $5.29 if ordered for pickup, compared to $6.85 if ordered via Doordash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats, about a 30% increase. In Rochester, New York, the same chicken sandwich costs $4.45 for pickup or $5.50 for delivery through DoorDash and Uber Eats, a 24% markup.
In the new lawsuit, the plaintiffs said that Chick-fil-A doesn't tell customers during the ordering process that its delivery service has higher menu prices.
"This hidden delivery upcharge makes Chick-fil-A's promise of low-cost delivery patently false," they said.
Pittman and Ukpere accused the chain of "obscuring" its true delivery costs and said it "deceives" customers into ordering food that they otherwise wouldn't.
They said they had ordered food for delivery on Chick-fil-A's website and later found out that the menu prices were higher than if they'd ordered it in-store or online for pickup. Both plaintiffs said that if they had known about this, they wouldn't have made the purchase, chosen another method for getting their food from Chick-fil-A, or ordered from another provider.
Other restaurants also charge higher prices for delivery, which is acknowledged in the suit, but the filers say that chains like Del Taco or El Pollo Loco "fairly and prominently represent their true delivery charges," unlike Chick-fil-A.
In the lawsuit, Pittman and Ukpere said they were also representing other Chick-fil-A customers who ordered food delivery through Chick-fil-A's app or website "and were assessed higher delivery charges than represented."
They said that they were seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as a jury trial.
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