Delivery Sushi in Philadelphia - A Comparison
C and I generally eat out once or twice a week, and we try to cook our dinners the rest of the time. But occasionally we get lazy and revert to ordering sushi online. C has her tried and true sushi roller that she goes to every time. I take more of a random walk through Grubhub. But neither of us has taken a very critical examination of where we *should* be ordering our sushi from.
Deliver sushi is essentially a commoditized business. I would be hard pressed to ascertain origin by looking at a California roll. Or be able to make any compelling distinction between spider rolls in a taste test. As a commoditized business, it should be competing mainly on price and the customers should be deciding mainly on price. With a secondary parameter or how quickly the sushi will arrive.
So I set about creating a test for the most affordable delivery sushi in the city. I created a 'basket' of eight classic delivery sushi items (edamame, seaweed salad, California roll, Alaska roll, spicy tuna roll, shrimp tempura roll, eel cucumber roll and Philadelphia roll). This is a ton of food, but by taking a basket of many items, we are better able to see what the prices of an average order would be like. I also included delivery fee charged on Grubhub.
I looked at 21 different sushi delivery spots on Grubhub and found that there is a pretty big swing in prices. There is a 43% increase between the most affordable and most expensive options, which turn out to be $37.37 and $53.49 respectively. That roughly $15 difference can really add up if delivery sushi is a weekly habit, up to ~$838 a year. I will be the first to point out that no individual should be ordering eight sushi items for themselves, and that C and I generally order three items to split. But we probably average delivery sushi 1.5x a week, or approximately 4.5 items/week, which over a year could add up to ~$472.
Surprisingly, there was ONE optimal solution. Kyoto Japan. It has both the lowest total cost at $37.37, as well as the fastest estimated delivery time on Grubhub. However, there is a caveat (always is). Kyoto's rolls are ridiculously cheap, but it has the highest delivery fee for sushi restaurants. So if you were only ordering three items instead of eight, that delivery fee would become a larger portion of your bill and make Kyoto Japan more expensive relative to the competition.
Therefore I would like to include two honorable mentions. Mizu and Yummy Sushi. Both have no delivery fees, and both represent the second best option in price and speed respectively. Mizu is the second cheapest option on Grubhub, but the delivery estimate is longer. Yummy is the 7th from the top, but is tied with Kyoto Japan on delivery time. Mizu just happens to be my favorite delivery spot and Yummy is C's. I *believe* that Mizu has the highest quality fish around, and C (who is always looking for deal) loves it that Yummy will occasionally throw a free roll on our order on the house. So it turns out we were ordering pretty optimally all along.
This approach has many shortfalls
1) Location: some of these restaurants are closer to where you live and therefore will be faster in their delivery. Grubhub's estimate is really a subpar metric to be generalizing on. Even better, you could pick it up at the restaurant. That is the fastest option and you avoid delivery fees.
2) Three roll specials, non-Grubhub specials: There are five restaurants that offer three roll specials, on Grubhub: Sakura Sushi Cuisine, I Sushi, Kai Sushi and Ochatto. These tend to be very good deals (though Kai and Ochatto have big delivery fees). Many restaurants offer phone only deals and other non-Grubhub specials that can make their rolls more affordable.
3) Specialty rolls: While I can make the argument that the standard sushi rolls are pretty commodizited, the same cannot be said for specialty rolls. If you are craving a lobster roll of the sushi variety, none of this pricing stuff applies.