When the weather gets ugly, a lot of guests trade bar stools for couch cushions and start ordering in. That can be a great revenue offset for slow dining rooms, but bad-weather delivery also magnifies your risk: slick sidewalks, dark parking lots, rushed handoffs, and food riding around in freezing air.

If you treat bad weather deliveries as its own service mode, you can keep people safer and protect food quality while everyone else is winging it.

Decide When You’re Actually “On” for Delivery

The most important decision is not which bag you use. It’s whether you’re delivering at all.

Before the season starts, define what different levels of weather mean for your operation. For example:

• Light rain: normal delivery radius and times.
• Heavy rain or snow: smaller radius and longer quoted times.
• Ice storms or severe alerts: pickup only, no drivers on the road.

Pick who has the authority to flip those switches and how they’ll communicate it to staff and guests. The goal is to avoid arguing about safety at 6 p.m. while the radar looks like a disaster.

Make It Safer for Drivers

You cannot control the whole roads, but you can control the conditions in and around your building and the expectations you set.

For in-house drivers, set clear standards: non-slip footwear, use of insulated delivery bags that actually zip, and a company line that no order is worth speeding for. Keep basic gear near the driver entrance: ice melt, a shovel in winter, decent umbrellas, high-visibility vests or outerwear. Vendors like Grainger are good sources for non-slip and hi-vis gear plus safety signage.

If you lean on third-party drivers, focus on your end of the handoff. Keep pickup areas dry, well-lit, and clearly marked. Make sure they can find the right door quickly instead of wandering in the rain, dripping through the dining room to ask where to go.

Fix the Dangerous Spots on Your Property

Most incidents involving delivery and takeout cluster in a few spots: curb edges, ramps, and the path from your door to the parking area.

Walk those routes after a storm or heavy rain:

• Do puddles form right where people step out?
• Does the ramp get slick when it’s wet?
• Are there dark patches between the door and the lot?
• Where do drivers naturally park or wait?

Once you see it, you can act: non-slip mats at entrances, better lighting over the main path, a clearly marked pickup space you keep salted or swept, wet floor signs where people cross tile with wet shoes. These changes help guests, staff, and drivers all at once.

Package for Weather, Not Just Aesthetics

Storms are tough on food. Cold air and bumpy rides kill temperature; trapped steam kills texture.

Stress-test your current packaging:

• Does it leak when it’s jostled or gets a bit of rain on it?
• Do crispy items arrive soggy?
• Do hot and cold items ride in the same steamy box?

Where you can, upgrade to vented containers for fried items, separate hot and cold into different bags, and standardize the use of insulated delivery bags in bad weather. For very wet days, an extra outer paper bag can keep things from arriving soaked.

It helps to have a short “storm mode” packaging SOP so the team knows what to grab without debating every order.

Clean Up Staging and Handoff

Ugly weather magnifies any chaos in your pickup area. Drivers and guests want in and out, not a scavenger hunt.

Audit your setup:

• Are orders clearly organized by platform and time, or in a pile?
• Is the actual handoff spot blocking the door?
• Are guests and drivers constantly asking, “where do I go?”

Simple fixes do a lot: labeled shelves or zones by app, a dedicated spot for direct orders, and a handoff point a few steps away from the main flow so wet coats and dripping umbrellas aren’t clogging the entrance.

Quote Honest Times and Stick to Them

Nothing encourages risky driving like unrealistic promise times.

In bad weather, add buffer into your KDS or POS, widen delivery windows in your apps, and reduce your delivery radius if needed. Train whoever controls the tablets and phones to make those adjustments proactively.

It is better to quote 55 minutes and hit it than promise 30 and force drivers to choose between speeding and being late.

Communicate Clearly When Storms Hit

Guests are usually reasonable when the forecast is obviously ugly, but only if you keep them informed.

Decide ahead of time how you will announce:

• Switched-off delivery or reduced zones.
• Longer waits.
• Pickup-only periods.

Use a mix of website messaging, quick social posts, and clear notes on third-party platforms. On the phone, a simple line works: “We’re open and happy to cook for you, but because of the weather our delivery times are running a bit longer than usual. Pickup will be faster if that’s an option for you.”

Transparency turns most complaints into understanding.

Build a One-Page Weather Playbook

You do not need a big manual. A single page is enough:

• Weather levels and what each one triggers.
• Who decides and who communicates.
• Any changes to delivery radius, packaging, and quoted times.
• Basic safety expectations for drivers and staff.

Review it at the start of the season, then briefly before any big storm that’s clearly coming.

Handled this way, inclement weather becomes a controlled variation of your service instead of a scramble. Drivers stay safer, the food arrives closer to how you intended, and guests feel like you are prepared for the weather, not surprised by it.