ChowNow Reviews

this may be long. tl;dr: good luck trying to cancel. they require an "exit interview" and it may take months to get that. Record every phone call (legally) you have with them. Video record yourself returning their materials. SAVE the Tracking ID when you do ship their stuff back. They are shady and NOT to be trusted.
So, where do we begin? One of our co-owners recommended them. Said they'd be better than any of the other big three in our area: DoorDash (DD), GrubHub (GH) or UberEats (UE). Fine. After a few weeks, hardly any orders. I looked at the app, and there were hardly any restaurants in our area on the platform. Mainly pizza places. So we ordered UberEats as a delivery service. Boom! from the beginning they slapped. After one month w UE and 3 with ChowNow (CN), UE was pulling in 4x sales what Chownow was. So we call to cancel. . .
Sorry. One year contract on all of our locations with ChowNow. So $1,200 to cancel early (per location). .. we paid $1,600 per location to have this service for a year. We argued, they didn't budge. Fine. . . half our locations just unplugged their tablets and put them away. FINALLY Oct 2020, our one year is up, we call to cancel.
They then say we have to have an exit interview. We have to have a call with someone before they let us go. . . Unbelievable. So, we schedule online call w their person. I will admit, I forgot about it and didn't log in. So I message the guy, he is on vacation for weeks, so nothing til then. Grrrr. . . cannot believe there is only ONE person to do this. Fine, we reschedule. A few days before, he says he can't make the call. . . Whatever, fine, I missed first call. We reschedule for 3rd attempt. . . FINALLY date comes, we finally get to LEAVE CHOWNOW. . .
Nope. I login, he does not. He's a no-show.
So finally I email the gentleman, just begging, please, please, just let us go. . . ? please? . . . maybe? is there a fee to be let go? . . . our one year contract is up . . . maybe they need to report numbers of restaurants signed up??
He finally acquiesces and says he'll let us go w/o an exit interview (holy sweet baby Jesus, what a pain this all is). . . he follows through and mails us a box and shipping label.
But still, we DO NOT TRUST these people, and it turns out rightfully so.
We video record ourselves at the Fedex Office store, putting all of the tablets and printers and cables one-by-one, into a box, taping the box up (all with the help of one of the FedexOffice employees), and place the shipping label on and video record the employee accepting the package. She gives us the tracking number.
FINALLY! DONE!!
Nope. . .
It's Dec 2020 by now, and of course one of our locations is still being billed monthly for ChowNow. . . I call. They said they'll take care of it. Jan 2021. Guess what? Billed AGAIN at that same, one location. We call, they say it's because we didn't cancel that one location.
WE NEED TO HAVE EXIT INTERVIEW BEFORE THEY CAN CANCEL THAT SPECIFIC LOCATION . . .
at this point we have no tablets, printers, cables, NOTHING. No idea why they need that exit interview again. I point all of this out, that we shipped everything. They ask for the tracking number. I provide it and show it arrived at their warehouse in December. I even explain we have video evidence that everything shipped. (Thank god) . . after a long hold woman returns and says, OK, yes, we do have all of your equipment (at this point I'm recording every call with them, fortunately, our state is a single-party phone call recording state). And they'll take care of it. No exit interview required.
finally, Feb 2021, it's first time, no charge from them. . . it only took us 16 months to be rid of this evil.
Just stay away. Record and save all interactions. Save your tracking number, you may need it months later, like we did. And it may be different in other parts of USA, but in our area, no one knows ChowNow compared to the other three, so I'm pretty sure we lost money on the $1,600/year fee compared to the 25% fee we pay to the other delivery platforms.