LOUIE & ERNIE’S PIZZA (Throggs Neck, 1300 Crosby Ave, The Bronx) — Italian / Pizza. Case study #37. Prices compared between Louie & Ernie’s own Slice ordering page (the shop’s direct-order channel, reached from the “Order Online” button on louieanderniespizza.com, set to Pickup) and the same shop’s DoorDash storefront, both for the 1300 Crosby Ave location, captured the same day.
Order a plain pie from Louie & Ernie’s — the Bronx corner pizzeria that has been turning out the same thin-crust rounds in Throggs Neck for sixty-five years, and that pizza obsessives routinely rank among the best in the city — from the shop’s own online menu and it is $21.00. Order the same pie on DoorDash and it is $21.50 — fifty cents more. Go the other way through the menu, though, and the pattern flips: a cheese slice is $5.00 at the counter and $4.75 on DoorDash; a chicken-parm calzone is $12 at the counter and $10 on DoorDash; the Sicilian pie is $36 direct and $33 delivered. We priced 16 of Louie & Ernie’s items side by side, and across the board the DoorDash menu ran a few percent below the shop’s own pickup prices — an average of about 6% cheaper, not more expensive. There is no delivery markup here at all.
That is worth sitting with, because it is the opposite of what a delivery bill usually implies. On 9 of the 16 items we matched, the food is actually cheaper on DoorDash than ordering direct from the shop; on 4 — the whole pies — it is a little higher; on 3 it matches to the cent. What it never does is climb the way a menu does when a restaurant is trying to claw back the platform’s commission. And that is the whole story: when a shop holds its delivery prices at or below its own, it is the shop, not the customer, that swallows DoorDash’s cut.
The receipt
Because the food is not marked up, the entire delivery premium sits in the fees — and on DoorDash in New York those fees are unusually easy to itemize, because DoorDash discloses them itself. Take that one plain pie. The food travels onto DoorDash at the shop’s $21.50. On top of it DoorDash adds a service fee — which it states as 17% (minimum $3.25) on its New York checkouts — of about $3.66; a $1.99 “NYC Regulatory Response Fee,” a surcharge DoorDash invented to offset New York’s commission cap; and $0 delivery, as the storefront displayed. That is roughly $5.65 in platform charges on a $21.50 pie — and none of it reaches Louie & Ernie’s. Add New York’s 8.875% prepared-food tax ($1.91, which a walk-in pays too) and a standard 10% driver tip ($2.15) and the same pie that costs $21 at the counter lands at roughly $31 out the door — about a +49% premium, essentially all of it fees and tip rather than food. (These fee figures are illustrative, built from DoorDash’s own published New York fee structure; the exact service and delivery fees a customer sees depend on the order, the address and DashPass membership, and require a logged-in checkout to confirm.)
The markup
Across the 16 matched items the delivery markup was, on average, about −6% — a mean of roughly −6.5%, a median of −5%, and a range from −17% (the calzones) to +4% (the specialty pies). A basket of all 16 items costs $291 ordering direct and $279 on DoorDash — the delivery basket is the cheaper of the two on the food alone. The split is clean and category-shaped: whole pies run fifty cents to a dollar higher on the app, while every calzone and both cheese slices run lower. We did not find a single item marked up the way this series has documented elsewhere, where a delivery menu is lifted 20%, 30% or more over the counter to recover the platform’s take. Here the shop simply carries its menu onto DoorDash more or less intact — and, on the calzones especially, a touch below.
What the shop nets
Here is why a zero (or negative) markup is the whole story. When a customer orders delivery through DoorDash, the platform keeps a commission on the sale. To come out level with a walk-in, a shop would need to mark its delivery menu up by about +42.9% at a 30% commission — or about +17.6% even at New York’s capped 15%. Louie & Ernie’s marks up nothing, and on most items prices below its own counter. So the math runs entirely against the shop: at New York’s capped 15% commission, the $279 delivery basket leaves the pizzeria about $237 — roughly $54 less than the $291 the same items bring in at the counter. If the store pays a higher effective rate for wider delivery and promotion — the 2025 New York amendment lets a restaurant opt into add-ons that can push the total toward roughly 30% or more — it keeps about $195, some $96 less than direct. On all 16 of the 16 items, the shop nets less selling through DoorDash than selling the same item at its own counter. This is the pattern this series calls absorbing (Type B): the customer pays the shop’s own price or less, and the shop quietly eats the commission out of its own margin.
Why it still lands on DoorDash
Louie & Ernie’s sets its own menu prices; DoorDash does not. But DoorDash sets the commission and the consumer fees, and a shop that chooses to hold its delivery prices at — or under — its own is choosing to absorb the cut. Many restaurants in this series lift their delivery menus to recover the platform’s commission, in whole or in part; Louie & Ernie’s has, on every item, declined to. That protects the delivery customer from a menu markup, and squeezes the kitchen. It does not make the customer’s bill cheap: the service fee, the $1.99 NYC Regulatory Response Fee, tax and tip still stack up at checkout, none of which appear in the matched menu prices above. And it does not make the platform’s take disappear — it simply moves it. DoorDash collects a commission from the restaurant and a stack of fees from the customer on the very same order.
The New York context
New York City caps the core commission a delivery app can charge a restaurant at 15% for delivery, plus 5% for other listing and marketing services and 3% for card processing — limits the City Council first made permanent in 2021. A 2025 amendment, signed into law after the platforms sued and settled, now lets restaurants opt to pay an additional up to 20% for “enhanced services” such as wider delivery zones and top-of-search placement, which can push the total a restaurant chooses to pay toward roughly 43% — the same figure a shop would need to mark up its menu just to break even. Louie & Ernie’s marks up none of it. Where New York’s cap does reach the customer is in DoorDash’s own disclosure: after a New York delivery address is set, DoorDash shows a notice that “Regulations in New York City have increased the cost of facilitating deliveries” and that it therefore charges the $1.99 NYC Regulatory Response Fee — a consumer surcharge that offsets the commission cap. The same notice adds, under New York’s algorithmic-pricing law, that “this price was set by an algorithm using your personal data.” The Mayor’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection continues to review delivery-app fees.
| Item | Pickup price | DoorDash | Markup | Shop nets @15% cap (vs pickup) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pizza | ||||
| Sicilian Cheese Pizza (8 slices) | $36.00 | $33.00 | −8% | $28.05 (-7.95) |
| Godfather Pizza | $32.00 | $32.00 | +0% | $27.20 (-4.80) |
| Clam Pizza | $26.00 | $27.00 | +4% | $22.95 (-3.05) |
| Fresh Tomato & Mozzarella Pizza | $26.00 | $27.00 | +4% | $22.95 (-3.05) |
| White Pizza | $26.00 | $27.00 | +4% | $22.95 (-3.05) |
| Cheese Pie (plain, whole) | $21.00 | $21.50 | +2% | $18.27 (-2.73) |
| By the Slice | ||||
| Fresh Tomato & Mozzarella Slice | $7.00 | $7.00 | +0% | $5.95 (-1.05) |
| Cheese Slice | $5.00 | $4.75 | −5% | $4.04 (-0.96) |
| Sicilian Slice | $5.00 | $4.75 | −5% | $4.04 (-0.96) |
| Calzones | ||||
| Family Cheese Calzone (feeds 6-8) | $35.00 | $35.00 | +0% | $29.75 (-5.25) |
| Fried Cheese Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| Chicken Parmigiana Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| Broccoli Rabe & Mozzarella Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| Eggplant Parmigiana Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| Sausage, Onion & Peppers Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| Meatball Parmigiana Calzone | $12.00 | $10.00 | −17% | $8.50 (-3.50) |
| All 16 matched items (basket) | $291.00 | $279.00 | −4.1% | $237.15 (-53.85) |
By the numbers
- Items matched: 16 (same description and portion, same 1300 Crosby Ave location; build-your-own pies, single-topping add-ons, beverages and any item we could not confirm on both channels were excluded)
- Delivery markup: mean −6.5%, median −5%, range −17% to +4% — on 9 of 16 items DoorDash is cheaper than the counter, on 4 slightly higher, on 3 identical
- Basket: $291 ordering direct, $279 on DoorDash — the delivery basket is −4.1% on the food alone
- Break-even markup at a 30% commission: +42.9% — Louie & Ernie’s marks up nothing, a long way below it
- What the shop nets: about $237 on the basket at New York’s capped 15% (~$54 less than direct); about $195 at a 30% effective rate (~$96 less)
- Items on which the shop nets less than the counter: 16 of 16 at the 15% cap; 16 of 16 at 30%
- Illustrative DoorDash checkout on one $21.50 pie: about $5.65 in platform fees (17% service fee + $1.99 NYC Regulatory Response Fee) before tax and tip — none of it to the shop; ~$31 all-in with tax and a 10% tip, a ~+49% premium over the $21 counter price
- Story type: B (absorbing) — the customer pays the shop’s own price or less; the shop absorbs DoorDash’s commission
Method
On 16 July 2026, USA Times captured Louie & Ernie’s own prices from its first-party online-ordering page on Slice (slicelife.com) — the shop’s direct-order channel, reached from the “Order Online” button on louieanderniespizza.com — with the storefront set to Pickup, the price a customer pays ordering directly from the shop with no delivery cost attached, and treated it as the direct/counter price. The same day we captured DoorDash marketplace list prices for the same 1300 Crosby Ave store and matched them item by item. We matched only items with the same description and portion (round and square pies are treated as the distinct items they are; single slices are matched slice-to-slice; family-size calzones to family-size), used list prices rather than promotional prices, and excluded build-your-own pies, single-topping slice add-ons, beverages and any item we could not confirm on both channels. Across the 16 matched items the DoorDash prices ran, on average, a few percent below the shop’s Slice pickup prices; we report the prices as captured and do not speculate on why a shop’s two online channels differ. The fee figures in the receipt are illustrative: they apply DoorDash’s own disclosed New York fee structure — a 17% service fee (minimum $3.25) and a $1.99 NYC Regulatory Response Fee, both recorded by USA Times from a DoorDash New York checkout on 15 July 2026 — to a single $21.50 pie, with $0 delivery as displayed, New York’s 8.875% prepared-food tax, and a standard 10% driver tip; the exact fees a given customer sees depend on the order, address and DashPass membership and require a logged-in checkout to confirm, which this automated audit did not place. The “shop nets” figures are an analytical estimate that applies New York’s capped 15% (and, separately, a 30% effective) commission to the DoorDash price; they are our interpretation of the economics, not figures disclosed by DoorDash, and the true commission tier for this store is a private contract term that is not public. Prices can change and can vary by address; figures reflect the moment of capture.
Right of reply
USA Times contacted Louie & Ernie’s Pizza and DoorDash for comment and will update this report with any response. Louie & Ernie’s was told plainly that it is not the target of this story — and was asked the one question that decides it: after DoorDash’s commission, does it net more, less or the same as ordering direct, and is pricing its DoorDash menu at or below its own a deliberate choice. DoorDash was asked about its commission tiers in New York, why it charges the $1.99 NYC Regulatory Response Fee, and whether it accepts that on an order like this the customer funds the fees while the restaurant funds the commission.
Sources
- Louie & Ernie’s direct-order (Pickup) prices — Louie & Ernie’s Pizza ordering page on Slice, 1300 Crosby Ave, captured 16 July 2026.
- Louie & Ernie’s DoorDash list prices — Louie & Ernie’s Pizza, 1300 Crosby Ave, on DoorDash, captured 16 July 2026.
- Shop website / “Order Online” link — louieanderniespizza.com, reviewed 16 July 2026.
- DoorDash NYC Regulatory Response Fee and service fee — DoorDash NYC checkout disclosure, recorded by USA Times, 15 July 2026.
- NYC delivery fee caps and the 2025 amendment — NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, delivery fee caps, reviewed July 2026.
This report is part of a USA Times series auditing food-delivery pricing. Prices were collected by USA Times on the date noted, compared item by item against the restaurant’s own current menu, and reviewed by an editor before publication.
