Delivery takes a bigger bite of the UAE restaurant business

With more than a third of restaurant orders now coming through delivery, UAE venues are having to look more closely at margins, costs and where their revenue is coming from

PUBLISHED: Fri 2 Oct 2026, 8:00 AM

By:
Kushmita Bose

Delivery has become a much bigger part of the UAE restaurant business over the past year, helping some venues hold on to sales during a summer when fewer customers were dining out.

Delivery order volumes rose 17% year-on-year in summer 2026, according to new transaction data from restaurant management software provider Syrve Mena. Growth topped 20% in June and July before slowing to mid-single digits in August.

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Delivery now accounts for more than a third of all restaurant orders, up from around a quarter last summer. Dine-in moved in the opposite direction, with orders falling 12%, while overall order volumes were down 4%.

Revenue followed a similar pattern. Delivery revenue increased 15% year-on-year basis and its share of total restaurant revenue grew by around 3.5 percentage points. Among restaurants offering delivery, average delivery order volumes per venue increased 19%.

But the shift comes with a challenge for restaurants. A delivery order brings in roughly 30% less at the till than a dine-in order. Average delivery ticket sizes were also down 2% from last summer, while dine-in tickets rose 9%.

That leaves restaurants balancing the additional business that delivery can bring against the amount they make from each order. Platform commissions, packaging, promotions and other costs can further narrow margins, particularly for venues that depend heavily on third-party delivery platforms.

Restaurants with delivery accounting for at least 40% of orders ended the summer broadly flat, while dine-in-only restaurants recorded a decline of around 8%.

Alex Ponomarev, CEO of Syrve Mena, said: “The key takeaway this summer is that growth came from a shift in mix: restaurants with 40%+ delivery share closed the summer flat, dine-in-only restaurants lost about 8%, and since a delivery order brings in roughly 30% less at the till, the winners are the operators managing margin across both channels rather than chasing volume.”

Delivery spreads whole week

There has also been a change in when people order.

Delivery's share is now fairly steady from Monday through Saturday. Dine-in remains much more dependent on the weekend, with Friday and Saturday together bringing in just over a third of weekly restaurant revenue. The average Saturday dine-in ticket is around 50% higher than Monday's.

For restaurants running both sides of the business, those differences matter. Staffing, stock, promotions and menu availability may need to change depending on whether demand is coming through the restaurant floor or through delivery.

They also make it more important to know which orders are actually contributing to the bottom line. A promotion may bring in more delivery orders, for example, but the additional volume has to be weighed against discounts, commissions and fulfilment costs.

Heading into Q4, restaurants will also be preparing for the return of stronger dine-in demand as the weather improves, while managing a delivery business that is now spread more evenly across the week.

For cloud kitchens and delivery-first brands, the rise in orders provides a larger market to compete for. Their model avoids many of the front-of-house costs associated with a traditional restaurant and is designed around off-premise demand. The pressure on ticket sizes, however, applies to them too. If the value of an average delivery order is falling, keeping food, labour, packaging and fulfilment costs under control becomes particularly important. Higher order volumes alone do not guarantee stronger returns.

At the same time, restaurant performance is becoming increasingly concentrated. The top 10 % of restaurants now account for more than 40 % of total revenue.

Average revenue per trading restaurant still increased 7 % year-on-year, despite total revenue across the comparable restaurant base remaining flat and overall orders declining.

The blended average ticket rose 4 %, but the increase was largely driven by higher-ticket restaurants gaining a greater share of orders while lower-ticket venues lost ground. At the typical restaurant, the movement was far smaller, with the median dine-in ticket declining 1 %.

Taken together, the summer figures show a restaurant market where the way customers spend is changing even when overall demand is not growing.

Delivery is bringing in more orders and has become part of the regular working week, while dine-in continues to bring higher-value business, particularly towards the weekend. For restaurants, the question is no longer simply how many orders they can generate, but which orders make the most commercial sense.