◆ Chicago online ordering

Chicago restaurants are losing $80k+/year per location to delivery apps. Take it back.

Commission-free direct ordering on your own Chicago restaurant's branded site. From Loop lunch counters to Pilsen taquerías to West Loop tasting menus to Devon Avenue South Asian — marketplaces keep running, ingested into the same kitchen tablet via Otter. $499/month flat.

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Every Chicago neighborhood

The Loop. Lincoln Park. Wicker Park. Pilsen.

From West Loop Restaurant Row to Pilsen birria spots to Andersonville's indie corridor to Hyde Park family dinners — Zay-OS is set up to rank your restaurant in the Chicago neighborhood diners actually search.

The Loop
Lincoln Park
Wicker Park
Logan Square
Pilsen
Chinatown
Greektown
Andersonville
West Loop
River North
Hyde Park
Bridgeport
Bronzeville
Lakeview

Plus Oak Park, Evanston, Cicero, Berwyn, Skokie, Bridgeview, Naperville, and the rest of Chicagoland.

Why Chicago specifically

Chicago is the densest independent restaurant city in the Midwest and the most over-taxed by marketplaces.

Chicago carries 9.4M people in the metro and one of the strongest independent restaurant ecosystems in the country. The West Loop alone is the densest cluster of James Beard-tier restaurants in North America — Fulton Market, Randolph Street, and the surrounding blocks are running tasting menus and modern fine-casual at $50-$120 average tickets. The 28-32% effective commission these operators pay on a $90 Uber Eats order silently bleeds $25-$30 off every reorder, on volumes that compound into six-figure annual leakage per location.

The neighborhood scene is just as dense and more under-monetized. Pilsen and Little Village hold one of the strongest independent Mexican restaurant scenes in the US — birria, panaderías, Michoacán and Oaxacan regional kitchens, taquerías serving high-repeat lunch and weekend traffic. Devon Avenue is one of the densest South Asian restaurant strips in North America. Bridgeview anchors the Chicago-area Palestinian and broader Arab-American community. Andersonville, Logan Square, and Wicker Park run the modern indie scene. Greektown, Chinatown, and Argyle Street hold the legacy ethnic corridors. Every one of these neighborhoods is full of operators paying a percentage tax that direct ordering eliminates entirely.

And the city has the structural commute pattern that makes direct ordering even more leveraged — Loop and River North office workers ordering lunch on a 90-minute window, North Side residents reordering dinner on Tuesday-Wednesday, weekend brunch traffic spiking from Wicker Park to Andersonville. CRM-driven reorder messaging on a branded site rebuilds that whole pattern off the marketplaces.

Imagine your Chicago Naya Grill

The same playbook. Tuned for Chicago.

Naya Grill is the proof. Two Florida fast-casual locations on Zay-OS — direct orders flow through the branded site with zero commission, while DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub orders ingest into the same kitchen tablet via Otter. The same kit fits a Loop sandwich counter, a Pilsen taquería, a West Loop tasting room, a Devon Avenue South Asian spot, or a Bridgeview shawarma kitchen: one ticket flow, one menu source of truth, four channels covered.

2
live FL locations
0%
on direct orders
1
kitchen tablet
4
channels routed
Every Chicago cuisine

From Italian beef to birria to South Asian to Arab.

Chicago's ethnic-cuisine density is unmatched in the Midwest. Zay-OS ranks across the full spectrum — Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Greek, South Asian, Korean, Polish, Arab, and the modern American scene.

Italian
Mexican
Chinese
Greek
South Asian
Korean
Polish
Thai
American
Sushi
Pizza
Arab + Middle Eastern
Chicago flat pricing

$499/month per location. No commission. Ever.

Operator is $499/month. Operator + Marketplace (Otter-ingested DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub) is $599. Concierge for up to 5 Chicago locations or virtual brands is $699 flat. The diner pays a $2.99 per-order fee — the restaurant keeps 100% of food revenue.

Full pricing breakdown →
Chicago operator questions

Asked by Chicagoland restaurants.

Is Zay-OS actually live in Chicago today?
Zay-OS is live in Florida at Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach. Chicago is one of our priority national expansion markets — operators in the Loop, West Loop, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Pilsen, Logan Square, Andersonville, Hyde Park, Bridgeview, and the broader Chicagoland metro can lock pricing and the branded site build today.
How much are Chicago restaurants losing to DoorDash and Uber Eats?
A single Chicago location doing 4,000 orders/month at a $34 average ticket pays roughly $34,000/month in marketplace commission (25-30% effective rate). That is about $80,000/year per location that direct ordering on Zay-OS would put back in the operator account. A busy West Loop or Lincoln Park spot at 7,000 orders/month is losing closer to $160,000/year.
Does Zay-OS rank for deep-dish, Italian beef, and the Chicago classics?
Yes. Chicago is one of the most search-saturated restaurant cities in the US, and deep-dish + Italian beef are some of the highest-intent local food queries in the country. Our schema treats both as first-class Chicago search categories. Direct ordering with branded reorder is the right pattern for high-loyalty Chicago classics — the regulars know you, they should not be paying DoorDash to find you again.
What about Pilsen, Little Village, and the Mexican restaurant scene?
Pilsen and Little Village hold one of the strongest independent Mexican restaurant scenes in the country — birria spots, taquerías, panaderías, Oaxacan and Michoacán regional kitchens. These are exactly the operators 28% marketplace commission destroys fastest. Branded direct ordering with one-tap reorder and CRM re-marketing keeps the high-repeat lunch and weekend traffic on direct ordering instead of leaking to DoorDash.
What about Devon Avenue South Asian and the Bridgeview Arab community?
Yes — both are priority Chicago corridors. Devon Avenue is one of the densest South Asian (Indian + Pakistani + Bangladeshi) restaurant strips in North America. Bridgeview anchors the Chicago-area Palestinian and broader Arab-American community with a dense Arab restaurant cluster. The schema includes ethnic-cuisine variants and the discovery layer surfaces those restaurants without putting non-English text on the visible site.
Does it work for the West Loop and the modern fine-dining scene?
Yes. The West Loop is the densest cluster of James Beard-tier restaurants in the country. Branded direct ordering with scheduled reservations-adjacent ordering, tasting-menu pre-pay, large-party group orders, and CRM is the right tool — the marketplaces were never engineered for higher-ticket dining. The same kit handles River North, Fulton Market, and Lincoln Park dinner spots.
How far into Chicagoland does Zay-OS reach?
Full Chicago metro plus the inner-ring suburbs. That includes Oak Park, Evanston, Cicero, Berwyn, Skokie, Bridgeview, Naperville, Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, and the rest of Cook, DuPage, Lake, Kane, and Will counties. One operator plan covers any Chicagoland location.
Do I have to drop DoorDash and Uber Eats to switch?
No. Every Chicago operator we onboard keeps the marketplaces running for discovery — important in a city with this much commuter + tourist + transient traffic. On Operator + Marketplace ($599/mo), Otter pulls every DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub order into the same kitchen tablet as your Zay-OS direct orders. You steer repeats to direct ordering over time without losing first-time diner reach.
Keep reading
New York ordering →
Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.
Los Angeles ordering →
DTLA, K-Town, Silver Lake, WeHo.
Pillar page →
Why direct ordering wins.
Also: how it works · integrations · pricing

Built for Chicago. Onboarding for July 1.

Run the free grader to see what your Chicago restaurant lost to the marketplaces last month — or jump straight to getting started.

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