◆ Ybor City, Tampa

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

For restaurant owners: this is online ordering software, not a restaurant directory.

Quick answer

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

Get started or call 954-807-1509 or text us book a demo

No setup fee. Month to month. We get you live in under a week.

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 $399 to $599 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?

Yes. Restaurants in the Tampa Bay area take direct orders on Zayos today, among them Farooj Abo Alabed in Temple Terrace, Bella Roma NY Pizza in Tampa and Syrian Shawarma in Temple Terrace. Zayos is built in Fort Lauderdale by Zay Revenue Group, and one of the restaurants taking direct orders on it today is Naya Grill, a Lebanese fast casual brand in Pompano 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. We get you live in under a week.

on direct orders

100%

of food revenue

kitchen tablet

2 wks

to live, typical

Flat pricing

What does Zayos cost an Ybor City restaurant?

Operator is $399 a month. Operator plus Tablet, which adds DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub ingestion through Otter, is $499. Concierge is $599 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, $0.99 delivery, nothing on dine in, 10% on catering. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100% of food revenue, and 100% of tips on pickup and dine in. On delivery the tip goes to the driver.

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 on every direct order, and 100% of tips on pickup and dine in. On delivery the tip goes to the driver.

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 $399 to $599 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 Tablet at $499 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?

Yes. Restaurants in the Tampa Bay area take direct orders on Zayos today, among them Farooj Abo Alabed in Temple Terrace, Bella Roma NY Pizza in Tampa and Syrian Shawarma in Temple Terrace. We are a Fort Lauderdale company, and one of our live restaurants is Naya Grill, taking direct orders in Pompano Beach. Tampa Bay operators are onboarding now, we get you live in under a week.

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