One thing delivery restaurants often have to contend with is impatient customers. How long is the average delivery customer willing to wait for their food to arrive? According to polling, most Americans will only wait for an average of 40 minutes for a delivery meal. Any longer and they will either cancel the order or fail to order from that restaurant again. Of the respondents, around 7% said they were only willing to wait 20 minutes for a delivery restaurant to bring their order. That doesn’t exactly give restaurants much time to prepare a meal!

Shockingly, 3% of Americans (who are mighty patient) would wait as long as 70 minutes for their food to arrive. Let’s just say, they are every delivery restaurant’s dream! Of course, restaurants want you to know that from the time you call to the time your food is delivered there are many factors at play. First, your food has to be prepared and packaged. Then a delivery driver has to be available to pick up your food order and drive it to you. The drive time can often take longer based on traffic patterns and time of day. Often times, late delivery is no one’s fault, life just gets in the way. Most of the time, you should expect to wait between 30 and 40 minutes for a delivery order, especially if you live in a busy urban area!