◆ Ybor City, Tampa

Ybor City restaurant online ordering, without the commission. Zayos.

Quick answer

Zayos is commission free online ordering for Ybor City restaurants. You keep 100% of food revenue and tips on direct orders, set your own late night hours, and take pickup at $0.99 while DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub still land on one kitchen tablet.

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Why Ybor is different

Why does Ybor City lose more to delivery apps after 10pm than the rest of Tampa?

Because Ybor is a nightlife district that happens to serve food, and the delivery marketplaces were built for a 6pm dinner rush. Your busiest three hours are the three hours when the fewest couriers are accepting orders. Dispatch queues stretch, a fifteen minute quote turns into fifty, and the review that lands the next morning blames your kitchen for a courier shortage you have no control over.

Meanwhile the customer is standing on 7th Avenue, four hundred feet from your window. In a district this compact, the fastest food is food you walk to. Ybor City is a National Historic Landmark District: narrow brick streets, one way blocks, no curbside room on La Setima, and a parking situation that makes courier pickup slower than the walk. Pickup is the natural fulfillment method here, and on Zayos pickup costs the diner $0.99, so you can advertise a real price instead of an app total padded with service and delivery fees.

The event nights are the ones that hurt

Gasparilla, Guavaween, the Ybor City Saturday Market, and every night the streetcar runs a full house from Amalie Arena down Nuccio Parkway. On those nights the apps apply surge pricing to the diner and stack a dispatch queue on you. Scheduled pre orders on your own site do the opposite: guests order before they come down, you batch the tickets into pickup windows, and the window line actually moves. There is no version of that flow on a marketplace tile.

The daytime trade is a completely different business

By day, Ybor runs on cigar tourists, Centro Ybor visitors, market crowds and downtown workers who ride the streetcar over for a Cuban sandwich. That is high order count at a modest ticket, the shape percentage commission punishes hardest, because the apps take their cut on every one of several hundred orders a month. A branded site with one tap reorder is how a sandwich counter keeps the regular who buys the same thing every Thursday.

Run the numbers

How much commission does an Ybor City restaurant pay in a year?

Modeled, not a customer result. 700 app orders a month at a $28 average ticket, at a 25% effective blended rate.

700
app orders a month
$28
average ticket
$4,900
commission a month
$58,800
commission a year

Marketplace commission runs 15% to 30% as a base rate, and 25% to 35% as a blended real cost once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. Zayos is a flat $499 a month per location. Put your own numbers in the commission calculator.

Coverage

Which Ybor blocks does Zayos cover?

All of them, plus the neighborhoods that spill into Ybor on a busy night. Your branded site ranks on your own domain, in the district a diner actually searches.

7th Avenue (La Setima)
Centro Ybor
Ybor City Saturday Market
Nuccio Parkway
Palm Avenue
Adamo Drive
Centennial Park
GaryBaldi Historic Blocks
Streetcar Line to Channelside
Ybor Heights
V.M. Ybor
Historic Brick District

Plus Channelside, Downtown Tampa, Tampa Heights, Seminole Heights and the rest of Hillsborough County.

Ybor kitchens

What kind of Ybor kitchen does this fit?

Ybor was built by Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian cigar families, and the menus still show it. A Zayos storefront bends to your brand, and the Latin operator playbook lives at Latin restaurants.

Cuban
Spanish + Tapas
Sicilian + Italian
Cuban Sandwich Counters
Late Night Bar Kitchens
Tacos + Mexican
Southern + Soul
Cigar Bar Small Plates
Pizza by the Slice
Coffee + Cafe con Leche
Vegan + Plant Based
Empanadas + Bakeries
Straight answer

Is Zayos live in Tampa yet?

No. We have no restaurant live in Tampa Bay today, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Zayos is built in Fort Lauderdale by Zay Revenue Group, and the restaurant taking direct orders on it right now is Naya Grill, a Lebanese fast casual brand with two locations in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach. That is the proof: zero commission on direct orders, and DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets ingested into the same kitchen tablet through Otter. Tampa Bay operators are onboarding now. Most go live in under two weeks, and the first direct order usually lands within a week of signing up.

0%
on direct orders
100%
of food and tips
1
kitchen tablet
2 wks
to live, typical
Flat pricing

What does Zayos cost an Ybor City restaurant?

Operator is $499 a month. Operator plus Marketplace, which adds DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub ingestion through Otter, is $599. Concierge is $699 and includes up to five virtual brands per kitchen. All three are per location, per month, no setup fee, month to month. The diner pays a small service fee at checkout, $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, nothing on dine in, 10% on catering. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100% of food revenue and tips.

Full pricing breakdown →
Operator questions

What do Ybor City owners ask before they switch?

Why do my Ybor City delivery orders take so long after midnight?
Because courier supply on the marketplaces drops off exactly when 7th Avenue gets busy. Between 11pm and 3am there are fewer drivers accepting, dispatch times stretch, and food that left your window hot arrives cold. The kitchen gets the one star review for a delay it did not cause. Direct pickup on your own Zayos site removes the courier from the equation entirely for the crowd that is already standing three blocks away, and pickup costs the diner $0.99.
Does commission free ordering make sense for a bar kitchen, not a restaurant?
Yes, and Ybor is mostly bar kitchens. A Zayos storefront lets you publish a short late night menu with its own hours, so the full dinner menu closes at 10pm and a six item late menu opens until 2:30am without you touching a marketplace dashboard. You set the hours, the prep times and the cutoffs. You keep 100% of food revenue and 100% of tips on every direct order.
What happens on Gasparilla, Guavaween and big Amalie Arena nights?
Those are the nights the apps cost you the most, because surge pricing inflates the diner total and long dispatch queues push your ETA past an hour. Pre ordering on your own site is the answer: guests place scheduled pickup orders before they come down to Ybor, you batch the tickets by pickup window, and the line at the window moves. Nothing about that flow exists on a marketplace tile.
How much commission is an Ybor City restaurant actually paying?
Modeled: an Ybor operator pushing 700 orders a month through the apps at a $28 average ticket, at a 25% effective blended rate, pays about $4,900 a month, or $58,800 a year, per location. Marketplace commission runs 15% to 30% as a base rate and 25% to 35% as a blended real cost once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. Zayos is a flat $499 a month per location instead.
Do the brick streets and the parking situation change anything?
They change everything about delivery economics here. Ybor City is a National Historic Landmark District with narrow brick streets, one way blocks and almost no curbside space on 7th Avenue, so courier pickup is slow and double parking is normal. Meanwhile the diners are already walking. In a district this dense, pickup converts better than delivery, which is the opposite of the suburban Tampa pattern. Zayos lets you promote pickup with a real pickup price instead of burying it under app fees.
Does it fit a Cuban sandwich counter doing daytime volume?
Yes. The daytime trade in Ybor is cigar tourists, Centro Ybor visitors, the Saturday Market crowd and downtown workers riding the streetcar over. That is a high count, modest ticket pattern, which is the worst possible shape for percentage commission because the apps take a cut on every one of several hundred orders a month. One tap reorder on a branded site is how you keep the regulars who come back for the same sandwich every week. See the Latin operator playbook at /for/latin.
Do I have to leave DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub?
No, and in a tourist district you should not. Visitors search the apps first. On Operator plus Marketplace at $599 a month, Otter pulls every DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub order into the same kitchen tablet as your Zayos direct orders, so the line sees one queue. You keep the apps for first touch discovery and move the repeat business to direct ordering over time.
Is Zayos live in Ybor City or anywhere in Tampa right now?
No. Zayos has no restaurant live in Tampa Bay today. We are a Fort Lauderdale company, and our live customer is Naya Grill, taking direct orders in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach. Tampa Bay operators are onboarding now, most go live in under two weeks, and the first direct order usually lands within a week of signing up.
Keep reading
Tampa ordering →
The metro page, Hyde Park to Westshore.
St. Petersburg ordering →
Across the bay, the other nightlife district.
Latin restaurants →
The playbook for Cuban and Latin kitchens.
Also: QR code ordering · what is Zayos · how it works · pricing

See what last month on 7th Avenue actually cost you.

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