SCREAMER’S PIZZERIA (Crown Heights, 685 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn) — Italian / Pizza. Case study #30. Prices compared between Screamer’s own Square pickup menu and the same shop’s Uber Eats storefront, both for the 685 Franklin Avenue location, captured the same day.
Order a medium Screamers pie — the garlic-oil, cremini-and-oyster-mushroom pie this all-vegan Crown Heights shop is named for — for pickup on the restaurant’s own ordering site and it is $26.00. Order the exact same pie, from the same kitchen, delivered on Uber Eats and it is $28.00 — about 8% more. The pattern holds across the menu, and it is not flat: most specialty pies carry roughly the same couple of dollars (a $26 medium becomes $28, a $35 large becomes $37), while the shop’s cheapest pies are lifted hardest — the medium Margherita, Plain Cheese and White pies each jump from $23.00 to $26.00, a 13% markup. We priced 25 of Screamer’s items side by side, across both pie sizes plus a calzone, and the delivery markup averaged +7%, ranging from 0% to +13%.
That is a real markup — unlike the flat, honest pass-through this series found at Table 87, Emily or Motorino, where the app price matched the counter to the dollar. Screamer’s does lift its delivery menu. But, as the numbers below show, it does not lift it nearly enough to cover what Uber takes — which means the shop is the one left absorbing the difference.
The markup
Across the 25 matched items the delivery markup averaged 7.2%, with a median of 7.7% and a range from 0% to 13%. A basket of all 25 items costs $721 on Screamer’s own pickup menu and $771 to have delivered on Uber Eats — about 7% more for the identical order. The markup is gentlest on the priciest pies (a $35 large specialty rises about 6% to $37) and steepest on the cheapest ($23 to $26 is 13%), so a customer ordering a plain cheese or a Margherita pays the largest premium in percentage terms. One item — the medium Old School pie — carried no markup at all, the same $26 on both. Nothing here approaches the size of the cut a delivery app keeps.
What the restaurant nets
Here is why a +7% markup is not the good news it might sound like — for the restaurant. When a customer orders delivery through Uber Eats, 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%. Screamer’s marks up about 7%. So the math still runs against the kitchen: apply a 30% commission to the $771 delivery basket and Screamer’s keeps about $540 — roughly $181 less than the $721 the same food brings in at its own counter. Even at New York’s capped 15% rate it nets about $655, still about $66 less than the counter. On all 25 of the 25 items — every one, including the pies marked up 13% — the restaurant nets less selling through Uber than selling the same pie across its own counter. This is the pattern this series calls absorbing (Type B): the delivery customer pays more and the restaurant earns less. The only party ahead on the transaction is the platform.
Why it still lands on Uber
Screamer’s sets its own menu prices; Uber does not. A restaurant that raises its delivery menu is trying to claw back the platform’s commission, and Screamer’s has — partway. A modest markup like this softens the blow to the kitchen without recovering it: the shop still eats most of the commission out of its own margin, while the customer eats the rest at the top of the menu. And the markup is not where the customer’s bill stops. On top of these prices, Uber still charges the delivery customer a delivery fee, a service fee and tax at checkout — none of which appear in the figures above, because they require a logged-in order to see. Uber also reports to merchants a “Menu Markup” metric measuring the gap between a restaurant’s in-store and in-app prices — a number the platform can see and the diner cannot; at Screamer’s that gap is about 7%, and it comes nowhere close to covering Uber’s cut.
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. Screamer’s marks up a fraction of that. One place New York’s cap does reach the customer is on the rival app: DoorDash layers a consumer “NYC Regulatory Response Fee” onto its checkouts, a surcharge it added to offset the commission cap — a mechanism worth flagging wherever it appears, though it is DoorDash’s and is charged at checkout rather than in the menu prices matched here. The Mayor’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection continues to review delivery-app fees.
| Item | Counter / pickup menu | Uber Eats | Markup | Shop nets @30% (vs counter) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium Pies | ||||
| Artichoke Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Cauliflower Buffalo Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Clean Slide Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Fancy Kale Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| National Treasure (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Pepperoni Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Sausage & Mushroom Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Screamers Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Vampire Pie (medium) | $26.00 | $28.00 | +8% | $19.60 (-6.40) |
| Old School (medium) | $26.00 | $26.00 | +0% | $18.20 (-7.80) |
| Margherita Pie (medium) | $23.00 | $26.00 | +13% | $18.20 (-4.80) |
| Plain Cheese Pie (medium) | $23.00 | $26.00 | +13% | $18.20 (-4.80) |
| White Pie (medium) | $23.00 | $26.00 | +13% | $18.20 (-4.80) |
| Large Pies | ||||
| Artichoke Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Cauliflower Buffalo Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Clean Slide Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Fancy Kale Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| National Treasure (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Pepperoni Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Sausage & Mushroom Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Screamers Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| Vampire Pie (large) | $35.00 | $37.00 | +6% | $25.90 (-9.10) |
| White Pie (large) | $32.00 | $35.00 | +9% | $24.50 (-7.50) |
| Plain Cheese Pie (large) | $32.00 | $33.00 | +3% | $23.10 (-8.90) |
| Other | ||||
| Calzone | $13.00 | $14.00 | +8% | $9.80 (-3.20) |
| All 25 matched items (basket) | $721.00 | $771.00 | +7% | $539.70 (-181.30) |
By the numbers
- Items matched: 25 (same description and portion, same 685 Franklin Ave location; medium and large pies treated as the distinct sizes they are; build-your-own pies, one-off items on only one platform, sauces we could not match, and drinks were excluded)
- Delivery markup: mean +7.2%, median +7.7%, range 0% to +13% — highest on the cheapest pies
- Basket: $721 on Screamer’s own pickup menu, $771 delivered on Uber Eats (+7%)
- Break-even markup at a 30% commission: +42.9% — Screamer’s +7% is far below it
- What the restaurant nets: about $540 on the basket at a 30% commission (~$181 less than counter); about $655 even at New York’s capped 15% (~$66 less)
- Items on which the restaurant nets less than dine-in: 25 of 25 at a 30% commission; 25 of 25 at New York’s capped 15%
- Story type: B (absorbing) — the customer pays more and the restaurant still nets less than the counter
Method
On 16 July 2026, USA Times captured Screamer’s Pizzeria’s own prices from its first-party Square ordering site (screamerspizza.square.site), set to Pickup from 685 Franklin Avenue — the price a pickup customer pays at that counter. Each pie’s medium and large prices were read from the item’s own size options (for a standard specialty pie, $26 medium and $35 large). The same day, we captured Uber Eats list prices for the same 685 Franklin Ave store from the rendered storefront and matched them item by item against the pickup menu, pairing medium with medium and large with large. We matched only items with the same description and portion, used list prices rather than promotional prices, and excluded build-your-own pies, items listed on only one of the two platforms, sauces and add-ons we could not pair one-to-one, and drinks. Because a logged-in checkout is required to see them, this automated audit did not capture the delivery fee, service fee, any New York regulatory fee, tax or tip a customer pays on top; the Uber figures reported are the storefront’s list prices for the food. The “shop nets” figures are an analytical estimate that applies a 30% (and, separately, New York’s capped 15%) commission to the Uber Eats price; they are our interpretation of the economics, not figures disclosed by Uber, 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 Screamer’s Pizzeria and Uber for comment and will update this report with any response. Screamer’s was told plainly that it is not the target of this story — and was asked the one question that decides it: after Uber’s commission, does it net more, less or the same as a walk-in, and is its roughly 7% delivery markup a deliberate attempt to recover part of the platform’s cut. Uber was asked about its commission tiers in New York and whether it tracks the gap between in-store and in-app menu prices (the metric it reports to merchants as “Menu Markup”).
Sources
- Screamer’s counter / pickup menu prices — Screamer’s Pizzeria Square ordering site, Pickup from 685 Franklin Avenue, captured 16 July 2026.
- Screamer’s Uber Eats list prices — Screamer’s Pizza – Crown Heights on Uber Eats, captured 16 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.
