Waitr, Inc. was founded at McNeese State University as a project led by Chris Meaux. It quickly spread throughout Louisiana and across the southern United States. In 2015, Waitr hired Griff’s Hamburger Executive Cory Griffin as Chief Operating Officer.[3]
In 2018, the company was acquired through a $308 million reverse takeover by Tilman Fertitta's Lancadia holdings, which is part of the Fertitta Entertainment portfolio.[3] In January 2019, Waitr acquired Minneapolis-based Bite Squad for $321 million, which effectively doubled Waitr's size. Bite Squad founder Kian Salehi stayed on for several months post-acquisition before leaving the company.[4]
In 2019, the company announced it would lay off all of its employed drivers, and move to a contract-only model, similar to Grubhub and DoorDash.[5] The move resulted in 2,300 drivers being laid off.[6]
Carl Grimstad was appointed Waitr's CEO in 2020 and tasked with recovering the company after a US$291 million net loss in 2019. Despite the significant increase in footprint it gained from the Bite Squad acquisition, Waitr still only had a 3% share of the US food delivery market. Grimstad focused on differentiating the company from its competitors, especially DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub.[6]
In 2021, Waitr made several major acquisitions. It bought Florida-based food delivery service Delivery Dudes in March for about US$23 million.[7] It acquired three payment processing companies all focused on cannabis dispensaries: ProMerchant, Flow Payments in March, and Cape Cod Merchant Services. Waitr also attempted to purchase Retail Innovation Labs Inc, makers of the Cova POS and inventory platforms, for US$90 million in December, however, the acquisition was not completed.[8][9]
The company announced in January 2022 that later in the year it would be rebranding itself ASAP and shift focus to non-restaurant deliveries, particularly cannabis. [10] The company expected to begin cannabis deliveries in Canada by the end of the year.[6] The renaming and a payment of US$4.7 million were part of a settlement with Waiter.com who had sued Waitr over trademark infringement. Waiter.com had been founded in 1995 and trademarked its name in 2000, 8 years before Waitr's founding.[11]
On March 30, 2024, ASAP announced it would cease operations. On April 2, 2024, Waitr Holdings declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.[12]