UPSIDE PIZZA (Garment District, 598 8th Ave / 270 W 39th St, Manhattan) — Italian / Pizza. Case study #40. Prices compared between Upside’s own commission-free online-ordering page (order.upsidepizza.com, powered by Toast, for the Garment District shop) and the same shop’s Uber Eats storefront, both for the 598 8th Avenue location, captured the same day. See also the restaurant’s own site, upsidepizza.com.
Order a cheese pie from Upside Pizza — the sourdough-crust slice shop on the corner of 8th Avenue and 39th Street that has built a cult following for its blistered, whole-milk-mozzarella pies — from the shop’s own online menu and it is $28.00. Order the exact same pie on Uber Eats and it is $28.00. Not a cent more. Do it again with a pepperoni pie ($40.00 direct, $40.00 on Uber), a cacio e pepe pie ($44.00 and $44.00), a vodka pie ($40.00 and $40.00), the garlic knots ($3.50 and $3.50) — and the pattern holds all the way down the menu. We matched 12 items, and on 10 of them the Uber Eats price is the shop’s own price to the penny.
This series usually documents the opposite: a delivery menu quietly inflated to claw back the commission the platform charges. Upside does not do that. Its two Sicilian pies are the only items that move at all — the Sicilian pepperoni is $4 higher on Uber ($44 direct, $48 delivered) and the Upside Down Sicilian is $4 lower ($40 direct, $36 delivered) — and because they offset each other exactly, a basket of all 12 items rings up at the identical $421.50 whether you order direct or through Uber Eats. On the food, Upside charges delivery customers exactly what it charges everyone else.
The receipt
Charging the same menu price is not the same as delivery being free — and it is emphatically not the shop coming out ahead. On Uber Eats the delivery costs come on top of an unchanged menu, not inside it. Take that $28 cheese pie. It travels onto Uber Eats at $28.00 — the same as the counter. On top of that Uber adds a service fee (a percentage of the subtotal) and a delivery fee, both of which a customer sees only at a signed-in checkout; then New York’s 8.875% prepared-food tax (about $2.49, which a walk-in pays too) and, if the customer tips the standard 10% we apply across this series, roughly $2.80 more. The identical $28 pie is already near $33.29 out the door on tax and tip alone, before Uber’s service and delivery fees push it higher. None of that is a menu markup — Upside adds none. It is Uber’s fees, stacked on a price the shop chose not to raise.
The markup
Across the 12 matched items the delivery markup on the food was, on average, 0% — a mean of -0.1%, a median of 0%, and a mode of exactly 0%. The range runs from −10% (the Upside Down Sicilian, which is actually $4 cheaper on Uber) to +9% (the Sicilian pepperoni, $4 dearer). Every other item — all 10 of them — is priced to the cent. A basket of all 12 items costs $421.50 ordering direct and $421.50 on Uber Eats: the same money. This is as flat as this series has recorded — flatter, even, than the near-uniform 10% overlays we have documented elsewhere. Upside’s Uber Eats menu simply is its counter menu.
What the shop nets
Here is why charging the same price is the shop losing money on every delivery order, not breaking even. When a customer orders 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%. Upside marks up nothing. So the full weight of the commission lands on the kitchen. At New York’s capped 15% commission, the $421.50 delivery basket leaves the restaurant about $358.27 — roughly $63 less than the $421.50 the same items bring in ordering direct. If the store pays a higher effective rate for wider delivery and promotion — New York’s 2025 amendment lets a restaurant opt into add-ons that can push the total toward roughly 30% or more — it keeps about $295.05, some $126 less than direct. On all 12 of the 12 items, the shop nets less selling through Uber Eats than selling the same item at its own counter, at either rate. This is the pattern this series calls absorbing (Type B) in its purest form: most absorbers at least mark the menu up part-way to blunt the commission. Upside does not mark it up at all — it eats the entire cut, and the delivery customer is the rare one who is not overpaying on the food.
Why it still lands on Uber Eats
Upside sets its own menu prices; Uber Eats does not. But Uber sets the commission and the consumer fees, and a shop that lifts its delivery menu by zero — when it would take 40%-plus to recover the cut — is choosing to absorb all of it. That choice protects the delivery customer from the recovery pricing other restaurants use; the trade-off is that Upside keeps far less on every delivery sale than on a walk-in. It does not make the customer’s bill cheap, either: the service fee, delivery fee, tax and tip still stack up at checkout — none of which appears in the identical menu prices above. And it does not make the platform’s take disappear. Uber still collects a commission from the restaurant and a stack of fees from the customer on the very same order; the only thing missing from Upside’s version is the hidden menu markup. On this order the shop loses margin, the customer pays fees, and the platform is the one party made whole.
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. Upside marks up nothing and holds every pie at the counter price. The Mayor’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection continues to review delivery-app fees.
| Item | Direct price | Uber Eats | Markup | Shop nets @15% cap (vs direct) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18″ Pies | ||||
| Cheese Pie (18″) | $28.00 | $28.00 | 0% | $23.80 (-4.20) |
| Pepperoni Pie (18″) | $40.00 | $40.00 | 0% | $34.00 (-6.00) |
| Spicy Vodka Sauce Pie (18″) | $40.00 | $40.00 | 0% | $34.00 (-6.00) |
| Sausage & Pickled Peppers Pie (18″) | $40.00 | $40.00 | 0% | $34.00 (-6.00) |
| Mushroom, WWLC Pie (18″) | $40.00 | $40.00 | 0% | $34.00 (-6.00) |
| Tomato Pie / Vegan (18″) | $28.00 | $28.00 | 0% | $23.80 (-4.20) |
| 50/50 Pie (18″) | $34.00 | $34.00 | 0% | $28.90 (-5.10) |
| Creamed Spinach Pie (18″) | $40.00 | $40.00 | 0% | $34.00 (-6.00) |
| Cacio E Pepe Pie (18″) | $44.00 | $44.00 | 0% | $37.40 (-6.60) |
| Sicilian Pies | ||||
| Sicilian Pepperoni | $44.00 | $48.00 | +9% | $40.80 (-3.20) |
| Upside Down Sicilian | $40.00 | $36.00 | −10% | $30.60 (-9.40) |
| Knots | ||||
| Garlic Knots (4) | $3.50 | $3.50 | 0% | $2.98 (-0.52) |
| All 12 matched items (basket) | $421.50 | $421.50 | 0% | $358.27 (-63.23) |
By the numbers
- Items matched: 12 (same description and portion, same 598 8th St / 270 W 39th St location; 18″ round pies matched pie-to-pie, the two Sicilian pies Sicilian-to-Sicilian, garlic knots to garlic knots; slices, drinks, and any build-your-own or add-on items excluded)
- Delivery markup on the food: mean -0.1%, median 0%, mode 0%, range −10% to +9% — 10 of 12 items priced to the cent; only the two Sicilian pies differ, by $4 in opposite directions
- Basket: $421.50 ordering direct, $421.50 on Uber Eats — identical to the cent
- Break-even markup at a 30% commission: +42.9% (about +17.6% even at the capped 15%) — Upside’s 0% is far below both
- What the shop nets: about $358.27 on the basket at New York’s capped 15% (~$63 less than direct); about $295.05 at a 30% effective rate (~$126 less)
- Items on which the shop nets less than the counter: 12 of 12 at the 15% cap; 12 of 12 at 30%
- Story type: B (absorbing), in its purest form — a 0% markup means the shop absorbs Uber’s entire commission; the delivery customer pays fees and tip, not a higher menu
Method
On 16 July 2026, USA Times captured Upside Pizza’s own prices from its commission-free online-ordering page for the Garment District location (order.upsidepizza.com, powered by Toast; the same page is reached from upsidepizza.com), treated as the direct/pickup price a customer pays ordering straight from the shop with no delivery cost attached. Its Toast pickup address is 270 West 39th Street, the corner store that Uber Eats and DoorDash both list as 598 8th Avenue (8th Avenue and 39th Street); we confirmed the two are the same physical shop before comparing. The same day we captured Uber Eats list prices for that 598 8th Avenue store and matched them item by item. We matched only items with the same description and portion (18″ round pies pie-to-pie, the two Sicilian pies Sicilian-to-Sicilian, garlic knots to garlic knots), used list prices rather than promotional prices, and excluded slices, drinks, and any add-on or build-your-own items. Across the 12 matched items the Uber Eats prices were, on average, identical to the shop’s own direct prices, with 10 of 12 matching to the cent and the two Sicilian pies differing by $4 in opposite directions; we report the prices as captured. The fee description in the receipt is illustrative: Uber’s exact service and delivery fees depend on the order, address and Uber One membership and require a logged-in checkout to confirm, which this automated audit did not place; New York’s 8.875% prepared-food tax and a standard 10% driver tip are applied for the out-the-door figure. The “shop nets” figures are an analytical estimate that applies New York’s capped 15% (and, separately, a 30% effective) commission to the Uber 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 Upside Pizza and Uber for comment and will update this report with any response. Upside 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 ordering direct, and is holding its Uber Eats menu at the exact counter price a deliberate choice. Uber was asked about its commission tiers in New York, how it discloses its service and delivery fees to customers, and whether it accepts that on an order like this the customer funds the fees while the restaurant funds the entire commission.
Sources
- Upside Pizza direct-order (Garment District) prices — Upside’s own commission-free ordering page (order.upsidepizza.com / Toast), 598 8th Ave / 270 W 39th St, captured 16 July 2026.
- Upside Pizza Uber Eats list prices — Upside Pizza (598 8th Ave) on Uber Eats, captured 16 July 2026.
- Shop website — upsidepizza.com, reviewed 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.
