Mike Rondinaro
Co-founder
How we get the best food at better prices for our consumers
Workplace food that feels like a perk, not a deduction.
When people hear “best local restaurants” and “better prices,” they usually assume something has to give:
Either the food quietly gets worse
Or the workers end up paying more
Or the restaurant gets squeezed
Parkday only works if the opposite happens:
Food stays genuinely high-end
Employees pay $0 for lunch
Restaurants make predictable, healthy margin
Companies don’t pay more than they need to — they get the best pricing available for these excellent local restaurants versus delivery apps and legacy caterers
This article is how that math actually works.
The short version
We get better food at better prices by:
Giving restaurants predictive, reliable demand instead of last-minute chaos
Co-creating custom Parkday-only meals that are designed for volume and delight
Running long-term, balanced programs instead of one-off catering spikes
Charging companies a simple, clear price per meal with batched delivery fees — no platform markups, no mystery taxes, no mental math for employees
That lets us take meals that might retail for ~$30 in a restaurant and make them fit cleanly into a sustainable Parkday program over time — without junk fees, fake discounts, or “$10 stipend” math.
Why we don’t do stipends (and why they feel bad)
Traditional “lunch perks” for office workers often look like this:
“We want you in the office, in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Here’s $10. Good luck.”
On paper, it’s a perk. In real life:
$10 rarely covers a full, healthy meal in NYC or SF
People either top up out of pocket or feel nudged toward the cheapest, lowest-quality options
Companies still end up paying platform fees, delivery fees, and “convenience” fees
Restaurants get hit with high commissions and wildly inconsistent volume
From an incentive standpoint, it’s worse than doing nothing:
The company signals, “We want you here, but we won’t really invest in you being here.”
The employee feels the math every single day.
The restaurant takes the risk and operational hit.
Parkday’s view is simple:
If you want people in the office, and you want them energized and collaborative, the perk has to actually feel like a perk.
So we don’t do stipends. We do fully comped meals, at company-optimized pricing, as part of a predictable, structured program.
What restaurants usually see from corporate food programs
If you talk to operators, a lot of corporate food falls into two buckets:
Last-minute spikes
“Can you do 120 lunches for tomorrow?”
Or worse: same-day, “we forgot to order.”
The kitchen either scrambles or says no. Either way, it burns trust and margin.
Unpredictable trickle
Random individual delivery orders at random times
Prep is all over the place
Staff is either over- or under-scheduled
High platform fees eat into whatever comes in
In both cases, the restaurant is flying blind:
No clear sense of how much to prep
No clean way to schedule staff
No guarantee this is repeatable
So any time you ask for “corporate pricing,” what you’re really asking for is:
“Can you discount this and accept all of the operational risk?”
That’s a terrible trade for them.
Pillar 1: Predictive demand that actually helps the kitchen
This is the part you don’t see when you open the Parkday app.
Behind the scenes, we run a predictive demand model that understands our users “longitudinally” — over time, in different contexts, not just as one-off orders.
Across the Parkday network, we’re working with teams as small as ~50 and as large as ~1,000 potential diners per day. When you zoom out over that range, the pattern is consistent:
We typically achieve around 90% accuracy on how many people will reserve a meal on a given day
We reach around 75% accuracy on the exact meal-level choices
And that’s not just the morning of. Because of how our menus and data flows are designed:
We see high accuracy even when menus first go live, up to a full week in advance
As people update and confirm their reservations, the system keeps learning
By the night before service, the restaurant is operating with a near-complete picture of what’s going to happen
So whether it’s a 50-person office hub or a 900-person HQ, the restaurant isn’t responding to a surprise. They’re executing against a forecast.
That’s not just a fun data point. For a restaurant, it’s the difference between:
“We can’t take that order. It will break service.”
and
“We know exactly what to prep, when to start, and how to staff.”
What predictive notice changes for restaurants
Because we can tell restaurants in advance — with actual numbers that tend to be correct — they can:
Order just enough ingredients, instead of over-buying “just in case”
Schedule the right number of people for the shift
Batch prep intelligently around their existing service
Design the line around a known volume instead of guessing
That unlocks real savings for them on:
Food waste
Labor whiplash
Stress and mistakes on the line
And that, in turn, means they can offer Parkday program pricing that works for everyone over time — not just one painful, heavily discounted day.
Pillar 2: Custom Parkday-only meals
A lot of our best partners don’t just give us “something from the regular menu.” They design meals specifically for Parkday.
Think:
A version of their signature bowl that travels better for office service
A composed plate that holds up for a 60–90 minute service window
A protein / grain / veg build that hits our nutrition standards but still tastes like their food
Custom Parkday meals let restaurants:
Engineer portion sizes that make sense for volume
Use shared prep across components (e.g., one marinade, two proteins)
Optimize packaging and assembly for large groups
Hit a target food cost without compromising on the quality people associate with their brand
From the employee’s perspective, that translates into something much simpler:
The meal feels like a “wow, my office is really treating me” moment
It still tastes like the restaurant you’d choose for yourself on a good day
It doesn’t scream “corporate catering” or “watered-down version”
In other words:
The restaurant gets operational sanity and solid margins.
You just get a meal you’d happily pay for on your own — except you don’t have to.
Pillar 3: Long-term programs, not one-off spikes
Another key difference: Parkday is not “a big random order” — it’s a recurring program.
For restaurants, that means:
Repeatable revenue instead of surprise windfalls
Ability to plan staff schedules weeks ahead
Confidence to invest in equipment or process to better serve Parkday volume
A partner relationship where some days we make more, some days they do, but the balance over time is healthy and transparent
For employees, it means:
You’re not getting a $30 “hero meal” one day and then disappointed for the next ten
You get steady quality, with some days feeling especially premium and others feeling more everyday
Over the course of a quarter, the average value you get from the program is well above what you’d get from a simple stipend or individual app ordering
We care a lot about balance and trust over time:
Not every day has to be “fancy”
But the average day should feel noticeably better than what you’d buy for yourself
There is a balancing act going on — days we make more, days we make less — and it’s deliberately structured as a win–win–win (employees, restaurants, companies)
We tell new clients very directly:
Give us a week or two. You’ll learn to trust that we’re optimizing for everyone, not gaming any one day.
There’s a reason we have ~99% client retention. Once teams experience the program over time, the trust tends to stick.
Balance over time (without “promo weeks”)
With some services, the pattern is obvious:
Certain “special” weeks are amazing
The rest slowly drift toward cheaper, lower-quality options
Parkday isn’t built around promo weeks or “good quarter / bad quarter” food.
Instead:
Some weeks will naturally feature more premium restaurants
Other weeks might lean into slightly simpler builds
The overall experience, month after month, is designed to feel consistently high-quality, not like a marketing campaign
You shouldn’t have to guess if this is a “good week” or a “filler week.”
You should just feel like your workplace food is reliably, quietly excellent.
Pillar 4: No checkout, just reservations
For employees, the most important detail is often this:
There is no checkout flow.
You’re not:
Adding items to a cart
Comparing price versus stipend
Filling out a tip form
Watching fees stack up
Instead, you simply:
Reserve your meal
Or cancel your reservation if your plans change
That’s it.
Why this matters
It reinforces that your company is treating you — you’re not half-paying your own perk
It’s a much lower cognitive lift, which means more people participate and fewer people get stuck in decision fatigue
It gives us cleaner data and better lead time, which feeds back into restaurants getting more accurate predictions and better pricing
And for companies:
No employee checkout means no receipts to chase
No trickle of micro-expenses to reconcile
Cleaner reporting on actual program usage and value
Simple, transparent pricing for companies
For companies, our pricing is intentionally boring:
You see a clear price per meal
Plus batched per-restaurant delivery / service fees
No platform fees layered on top
No per-employee “gotchas”
Behind the scenes, that per-meal pricing is what funds:
The cost of the meals themselves
Our logistics, routing, and support
Our technology, integrations, and nutrition work
We sometimes describe it as a program-level fee, because that’s how we design it: the economics have to work across the entire program, not just one menu.
But in practice, what you see as a buyer is:
A simple, per-meal price that beats DIY delivery + stipends at scale for these same restaurants
Transparent delivery / service fees batched at the restaurant level, not buried as “convenience” charges
You’re not paying for a platform; you’re paying for great food that actually shows up, on time, without chaos, at the best program pricing these restaurants can offer.
How this looks in real life: $30 restaurant meals in a sustainable program
When we say we work with “super high-end restaurants,” we mean:
Meals that would easily be $25–$30+ if you walked in and ordered for yourself.
Because of:
Predictive demand
Custom Parkday menus
Long-term volume
And clean, program-level pricing
…we can make those same meals fit inside a long-term workplace program that’s fair to the restaurant, affordable for the company, and free at checkout (or more accurately, at reservation) for the employee.
Not every day is a $30 hero meal. But in the long run:
Employees get a level of quality that feels outsized compared to what they pay (which is $0).
Restaurants get a dependable channel they actually like serving.
Companies get a perk that people notice and talk about —
— not one they quietly resent.
How this connects to our “From abundance to curation” thesis
If you’ve read our core piece on “From abundance to curation”, you’ve seen our broader view of how food choices should work at work:
Not 10,000 mediocre options
A small, curated set of high-signal meals that actually fit each person
Less decision fatigue, more trust
Our pricing model is just the operational version of that idea:
We curate restaurants that want to be true partners, not just order-takers
We curate menus that are built for this channel
We curate a program structure and price that stays fair to everyone over time
Instead of optimizing for “How do we show the most options?”
we optimize for “How do we make truly great food sustainable in a workplace context?”
What this means if you’re an office worker on Parkday
Day-to-day, you don’t see the forecasting model, the staffing charts, or the margin math.
You just feel:
“Wow, I would absolutely pay for this outside of work.”
“I don’t have to pull out my wallet or calculate fees.”
“The variety and quality stay high, not just when someone from leadership is visiting.”
Or more simply:
You get to eat like someone is taking your time, health, and taste buds seriously — because they are.
What this means if you’re a restaurant thinking about working with us
If you’re a chef or operator, Parkday is:
A predictable revenue stream, not a one-off event
Built around advance notice and real forecasting, not same-day panic
A chance to design Parkday-specific offerings that showcase your food and travel well
A partner that cares about your operations and your brand, not just squeezing your menu into another app
And importantly:
You’re helping office workers support the local restaurant economy
Instead of eating in a closed-off, insular, laptop-class cafeteria with worse food, people are keeping real neighborhoods alive
Especially in cities like NYC, that means supporting the actual diverse, independent food culture that makes the city what it is
We’re not trying to be the cheapest option for companies at all costs.
We’re trying to be the option where:
Employees get the best value
Restaurants get the best partnership and channel
Companies get the best signal that coming into the office is worth it — and that they’re investing in the local community, not abstracting away from it.
FAQs
How does Parkday make money if employees don’t pay?
We structure pricing so that companies pay:
A clear price per meal
Plus transparent, batched delivery / service fees per restaurant
That covers:
The cost of the meals
Our logistics and operations
Our technology, integrations, and support
Because we eliminate a ton of waste — operational chaos for restaurants, duplicate platform fees, manual admin — there’s enough value to go around without charging employees at the point of “checkout.” (There isn’t one.)
Is Parkday more expensive than just using delivery apps and stipends?
You can always find something that looks cheaper on the surface — especially if you’re willing to:
Serve very low-cost food
Accept unpredictable quality
Push a lot of the cost onto employees via stipends and fees
That’s just not the world most of our clients live in.
For companies who care about:
High-quality food that employees actually want to eat
Serving teams in expensive markets like NYC and SF
Scaling beyond a handful of people without drowning in admin
…Parkday beats the total all-in cost of DIY delivery + stipends for these same restaurants once you scale past a small team — while delivering dramatically better food and experience.
And even the “cheap” options rarely hold up when you factor in:
Platform fees and markups
Time spent chasing receipts and managing stipends
The real quality of the food people actually end up ordering
The impact on retention, engagement, and office culture
The sentiment you see in real employee feedback and app store reviews
If your goal is “$14-a-head, lowest-bidder family-style trays,” we’re probably not the right fit.
If your goal is “food people are proud their company provides,” we are.
Do restaurants give Parkday a discount?
We don’t think about it as “discounting.”
We structure program pricing with restaurants based on:
Reliable volume
Predictable prep
Custom menu design
Lower friction on their side
That often results in a price that’s lower than the equivalent walk-in retail meal would be — but it’s also much more predictable, with far less risk. That’s the trade they’re happy to make.
How accurate is your demand prediction, really?
Across our programs — often serving 50 to 1,000 eligible diners per day in a single office or region — we typically see:
Around 90% accuracy on how many people will reserve a meal
Around 75% accuracy on which specific meals they’ll choose
Accuracy is strong even when menus first go live, and it improves as reservations and updates roll in, so that by the night before service, restaurants are operating with a nearly complete picture of what’s coming.
That level of predictability is what makes the whole ecosystem work:
restaurants can plan with confidence, and we can keep prices fair.
Why does any of this matter to an employee who just wants good lunch?
Because perks only feel like perks when they’re:
Simple (no forms, no receipts, no checkout)
Consistent (not just great once a quarter)
High-quality (food you’d happily buy yourself)
All the machinery underneath — the predictive modeling, the partner relationships, the pricing design — exists so that at noon, you can just reserve something great and get back to your day.
