Interview Questions › Guesstimate

Estimate annual food delivery orders in New York City

Estimate the total number of prepared restaurant food delivery orders placed annually across all apps (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub) and direct restaurant deliveries in NYC.

Context

NYC has 8.5M residents, high density, small apartment kitchens, and an established takeout culture.

Clarifying questions to ask first

• Are we including grocery deliveries (Instacart) or cooked restaurant meals only? (Cooked restaurant meals).
• Does this include direct phone/neighborhood deliveries alongside third-party apps? (All food deliveries).

How to approach it

1. Segment NYC Population (8.5M) by Household Income & Age Demographics (3.3M total households)
2. Categorize Household Delivery Frequency: Heavy Users (2-4 times/week: 25%), Moderate Users (2-4 times/month: 40%), Rare/Never (35%)
3. Calculate Annual Household Orders and add Corporate Office Lunch Catering
4. Sanity check against total NYC restaurant count (~25,000 restaurants)

Framework: Annual Orders = Sum of (Household Cohorts × Annual Deliveries per Cohort) + Corporate Deliveries

Sample answer

• 3.3M Households in NYC:
• - Frequent (25% = 825k homes) @ 2.5 orders/week = ~107M orders/year
• - Moderate (40% = 1.32M homes) @ 2.5 orders/month = ~40M orders/year
• - Light (35% = 1.15M homes) @ 4 orders/year = ~4.6M orders/year
• - Corporate Office Lunches = ~10M orders/year
• Total Annual Orders = 107M + 40M + 4.6M + 10M = ~161.6 Million orders/year

1. ~160 Million annual orders = ~440,000 orders/day in NYC
2. Supply check: 20,000 delivery restaurants × ~22 delivery orders/day = ~440,000 orders/day (Exact match)

Executive estimate: ~160 Million restaurant food delivery orders placed annually in NYC (~440k daily orders, ~$6 Billion in annual delivery GMV).

What interviewers look for

• Household Demographic Segmentation
• Order Frequency Distribution
• Office / Corporate Lunch Deliveries
• Restaurant Capacity Supply Check