Durham restaurants say delivery apps like Postmates are offering their food without their permission

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Times are tough for the food industry with restaurants only able to open at partial capacity but that doesn't mean all businesses want to work with third-party delivery services.

In fact, some are desperately trying to get third party delivery services to stop taking orders for their food.

"They are completely misrepresenting us," said chef Jimmy Kim of Durham's Cucciolo Osteria.

He and his wife Jorri are owners of the Italian eatery and say it's been a battle.

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"They are adding a lot of restaurants without ever informing them or getting consents from the restaurants themselves," Kim said.

For example, Postmates lists Cucciolo but Kim said he never agreed to that.

To make matters worse, several items Postmates lists on the menu Cucciolo doesn't even offer right now.

And the picture Postmates is using isn't of their food.

The Kims posted warnings on their social media pages, along with a warning on their website, and contacted Postmates.

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"Emails, social media, phone calls, we have tried everything," Kim said. "They were like we will be happy to take you off, but it never gets pulled off."

The reason why they don't want to use third-party delivery services is because they care about quality control.

"Once we hand over our product to the driver we completely lose quality control of our product until it reaches our guests and quality control is very important for us. So we have been refusing to work with these companies," Kim said.

Jorri says delivery drivers for Postmates continue to be successful in finding workarounds by placing orders and it impacts customers.

"A couple of dishes are missing and we had no idea because we didn't take that order. We can't really know if the order has been delivered, so that's the hard part," she said.

The chef at It's a Southern Thing in Durham says he's facing the same frustration.

Troubleshooter Diane Wilson reached out to Postmates and, just like the Kims, never heard back.

The best advice: if ordering food online and you want it delivered, first go to the restaurant's website or call them to see if they offer delivery and use third-party services for that. If they don't, but you can still find their menus and order their food on third party delivery service websites, beware as your order may not be right.