The article is almost written with two completely different tones. One is that GrubHub is offering delivery for restaurants that don't have an official delivery service. The other is that GrubHub is issuing deliveries from fake versions of restaurants or presenting restaurants as if they have an agreement with GrubHub.

I don't see why it's supposed to be illegal to pay someone to pick something up for you. Be it a bottle of Tylenol from CVS or some to go food from the local restaraunt. If the person goes there and finds out the restaraunt doesn't have takeout it's irrelevant to that.

It's obviously wrong to pose as/support fake versions of businesses or present yourself as contracted by them for delivery when you're not. Unfortunately the article has neither the wording nor information to make it clear which is actually going on. I suspect both to some degree though.

> The couriers walk in and we tell them we don’t even have an account with Doordash," Judy Ni of Baology told Philadelphia. "And so they leave and they go outside and call the guest, and the guest doesn’t understand what’s going on—it makes us look absolutely terrible, and it becomes this mess of confusion for the guest."

This is why it’s not okay to just let GrubHub/etc. add restaurants to their apps without the restaurant’s explicit permission. Getting takeout food isn’t like picking up a bottle of Tylenol - takeout orders require plastic containers and silverware and often take longer to prepare. Not to mention the fact that restaurant kitchens are already quite busy and don’t want to spend time figuring out some third party’s mistake.

I think this article explains things much more clearly: https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/SF-restaurant-Kin-K...

Sounds like trademark violations to me, I hope the owner sues hard and wins.