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What is acceptable 'doordrobe' aka what you wear to greet delivery drivers?

Food delivery workers share their horror stories as the delivery companies stay silent. The time has come for better standards.
Is "clothing-optional" the new normal for accepting food deliveries at your door?
Is "clothing-optional" the new normal for accepting food deliveries at your door?Liza Evseeva / TODAY Illustration

Dear Mister Manners: My roommate and his girlfriend are homebodies and order a lot of food for delivery. It shocks me that they think nothing of opening the door barely dressed. On more than one occasion, I’ve seen him accept pizza in just a towel. She, on the other hand, often hops to the door in nothing more than an oversized T-shirt. It all seems very disrespectful to me, but maybe I’m just being old-fashioned?

(Mealtime with Mister Manners is a column that delves into a smorgasbord of modern-day dining dilemmas. Please submit your etiquette questions at the bottom of this page.)

If you expected your roommate to Brylcreem his hair, put on a cardigan and iron his gabardine trousers any time he greeted the neighborhood delivery person, I would call a spade a spade and inform you your standards are entirely out of step with the realities of modern life.

What you are craving, it seems to me, is not some sartorial homage to the Eisenhower era. You’re wishful for a display of decency versus of a display of skin. Not so much for your sake, but for beleaguered delivery folks everywhere who are just trying to earn a living without having to unsee things they wish they had never seen.

Turning red on Reddit

It may come as some comfort to you that your devil-may-care roomie is not alone in the lack of priority he puts on wearing pants. In a post in couriersofreddit, a subreddit of nearly 60,000-strong delivery personnel, I asked members to share any experiences they’ve had with customers who have thought nothing of wearing … well, next-to-nothing.

Some of the behaviors described were vile and clearly assault. A handful were pitiable. Others were humorous. For the most part, they concluded without serious incident.

“I’m a female and I delivered food in Brooklyn until 1:00 a.m. for many years,” shared Reddit user MikaRoxy, going on to note that many of her male customers were taken aback that a woman was delivering their food, particularly at such a late hour. “I’ve had guys answer the door in just boxers, just a towel, no shirt…. they were always shocked when they saw me and most seemed shy or embarrassed,” she said, intimating that their aversion to fabric in the wee hours of the morning didn’t appear linked to any ill intentions.

Equal-opportunity immodesty

Lest it seem that shirtless men are the only ones forgetting to throw on some clothes, Redditor Zuki_Sin shared the tale of a household where the children relayed that their mother was in the shower but quickly dashed off to get her. Sure enough, along came their mom “with not a care in the world,” wearing a see-through robe.

“I once delivered to nudists,” recalled OnMeFone, a gig employee from across the pond. “The bloke wore pants for me, but his wife was fully naked. They must've been about 60 years old.” On the plus side — maybe? — he notes, “they were really friendly.”

Occasionally, a whole family appears eager to shatter the truism that we all put our pants on one leg at a time and simply skips doing so altogether. “I once delivered to a house where no one was wearing pants,” recalled badatusernames91. Or they were just wearing very short shorts. Full nuclear family too. Mother, father, and kids, probably in their teens. They were nice enough, but it just seemed... weird.”

'Powerpuff' and the pandemic

One of the few delivery folks willing to go on the record officially was Katherine Bach, a driver who worked for both Postmates and DoorDash starting at the age of 18. Now 21, she made deliveries all through the pandemic. At the apex of near-universal white-collar-work-from-home, she would encounter many customers wearing the Zoom-friendly look of “a suit jacket and tie or a nice blouse on top and boxers or PJ pants on the bottom.”

One of the most unexpected of those combos was the streamlined-on-top male professional wearing a pair of "Powerpuff Girls" boxers. ”He reached down to collect his food and caught a glimpse of his own shorts.” The sheepish look on his face said it all.

“It was kind of fun to see the more human aspects of people,” she said of delivering food during the pandemic — a time during which her pay nearly doubled, to $25 per hour.

And yet, even Hanna-Barbera superheroes could not have rescued Bach from the astonishing sight of a couple to whose home she was delivering food in suburban Seattle. After ringing their bell, through the frosted-glass entry, Bach, who is known on Reddit as Thy_Coolio, spotted two people approaching in only towels, making out as they made their way to the door.

“OK. Their house, their lives,” Bach recalled thinking. “As they were about to reach the door, I tried not to look too much.” They quickly pulled the door inward, barely taking a breath from their passionate lovemaking. “'Here’s your food,'" she announced. “They grabbed it and continued to make out as they closed the door,” she recounted, the image indelibly seared in her memory.

The good news? Whether it was out of generosity or guilt she is still not sure, but “they tipped very well.”

Sweatpants are better than no pants

Although not responsible for igniting amorous behavior at home, the pandemic surely hastened the decline of business professional wardrobes in favor of apparel that scores points primarily for being comfy. As the August 2020 New York Times Magazine cover story "Sweatpants Forever," pointedly teased, some in the fashion industry were fearful COVID-19 might eradicate dressing up for all eternity.

The pandemic also made more of us dependent on food delivery apps such as Grubhub, Seamless, Caviar, Uber Eats and DoorDash. The convenience could not be beat, and for those who could afford it, in-home delivery meant not having to risk COVID infection and doing takeout instead.

“COVID forced us all to rely on delivery, but the story is different for men and women,” said designer Frederick Anderson. Flipping the equation to look at the safety of the customer as opposed to that of the delivery person, he advised, “It’s never appropriate to be in underwear opening the door. But for a woman customer, he cautioned, “it’s actually dangerous.”

Always dapper, designer Frederick Anderson, seen here at one of his recent runway shows, wishes that food delivery customers would dress more modestly when answering the door — if for their safety alone.
Always dapper, designer Frederick Anderson, seen here at one of his recent runway shows, wishes that food delivery customers would dress more modestly when answering the door — if for their safety alone.Courtesy Frederick Anderson

A layered issue

Even in an era where gender roles are being examined from all angles, there is no denying the gender of the delivery person and the gender of the delivery customer do have the potential for creating different and exponentially more precarious dilemmas.

Geography and local mores clearly play a role, too. Would anyone think twice if a customer in Miami Beach answered the door in a tube top and shorts? On the other hand, what would the folks in Sheboygan be saying if a customer made that same choice in Wisconsin?

How about body positivity?

A 2017 commercial for Altice Mobile put Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo in the embarrassing situation of being locked out of his hotel room in only his boxer briefs. Fortunately for him, of course, he has abs for miles. Even more fortunately, a bemused housekeeper comes to his rescue, tapping him back into his quarters — though not before snapping a sneak photo. A rapid social media post ensues, one met by near-unanimous global acclaim.

The fictional incident begs the question: Would it be OK for an athletic man to come to the door shirtless, and would we say the same for a middle-aged man with a less-than-chiseled midsection?

“I had a customer answer the door wearing nothing but dingy whitie tighties and a smile. He was obese and very hairy,” said user kdjack1111. “I said: ‘I see you’ve dressed for dinner.’ He laughed. I didn’t.”

Such considerations aside, designer Anderson, whose Fall 2022 collection Vogue called "destined for going out," said “respect for others” is his own guiding principle, and that people making deliveries “don’t need to be subjected to our ‘alone’ look.”

Lessons from the hotel world

Professor Cheryl Stanley, a senior lecturer of food and beverage management at the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration, recalls her days working for a major hotel chain where she was hazed during her early tenure by being sent to the rooms of guests known for wearing inappropriate attire when receiving room service.

Professor Cheryl Stanley of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration believes geography plays a role in what attire some will find off-putting. “I lived in a very conservative part of Texas for my master's degree, and if there were people answering the door in a bikini, people would be upset,” she said.
Professor Cheryl Stanley of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration believes geography plays a role in what attire some will find off-putting. “I lived in a very conservative part of Texas for my master's degree, and if there were people answering the door in a bikini, people would be upset,” she said.Robert Barker

“You have to toughen up,” her colleagues told her. “This was 20 years ago,” she said, “so things are definitely different now.” Thankfully.

Were any guest to ignore standards of decency today, she believes most managers would speak with the offender directly, chastening: “You are putting my staff in a very uncomfortable situation. Either shape up or ship out — and don't stay here anymore.”

With an app, that sort of ban might prove more challenging. And if there was no deliberate attempt by the customer to harass or intimidate, delivery folks more often than not choose to let an offensive situation go, sharing their tales with friends and on message boards instead.

Delivery apps silent on the issue

Perhaps for that reason, none of the delivery apps I contacted — DoorDash (which also owns Caviar), Uber Eats (which bought Postmates) and Grubhub (which slurped up Seamless) — were able point to language in their terms of service that specifically addresses clothing standards for customers. Nor did any of these companies agree to make a representative available to discuss the topic with me, despite multiple requests.

Ads for DoorDash on the New York City subway promise “a neighborhood of good in every order” — though not a neighborhood of good taste when it comes to what people wear as they dash to their own doors to accept their food.
Ads for DoorDash on the New York City subway promise “a neighborhood of good in every order” — though not a neighborhood of good taste when it comes to what people wear as they dash to their own doors to accept their food.Thomas P. Farley

“Would you be blacklisted?” wondered Professor Stanley. “Would you not be allowed to use the app anymore? That’s not something I could find in their codes of conduct.” Indeed, though the terms of service for DoorDash, Grubhub and the apps mentioned above do reserve the right to terminate a customer’s account at the company’s discretion, none go so far as to spell out a dress code.

A mutual judgment call

The lack of formal guidance means the decision of what to wear when answering the door is left entirely up to the customer. And whether it crosses a line that demands reporting is left entirely up to the delivery person.

Under-reported though they may be, these incidents are far from unusual. Fortunately, anecdotal evidence also indicates that downright repugnant behavior is rare, and that most delivery professionals take immodesty in stride.

“You see all kinds,” posted Redditor uber-chica. “I have more nice encounters than not, thankfully. (I've) had some really funny things happen too. I guess it's just part of the job.”

No one-size-fits-all solution

As accepting as most delivery folks may be, I do believe we owe it to them to do better. As they have battled traffic and adverse weather conditions to bring us takeout Thai while we Netflix and chill, is it really too much effort to put on a shirt and pants before opening the door?

If you can’t trouble yourself to reach that baseline standard, you are best off instructing the deliverista to leave your food at the door, waiting until they are safely gone to retrieve the khao pad they’ve left at your pad.

Though mores may vary from person to person and zip code to zip code, I offer these baseline standards for anyone accepting a delivery:

  • Could your wardrobe be interpreted by the delivery person as suggestive or aggressive in any way?
  • Have you come to the door looking like you’ve just come from the shower?
  • Might your outfit decision embarrass other members of your household?
  • Could your coverings raise eyebrows if you wore them in public?
  • Would you be embarrassed if a photo of you in your door-answering ensemble wound up on social media?

If you replied even vaguely in the affirmative to any of the above, it is time to reconsider your "doordrobe."

Perhaps along with ordering food, you should order some clothing, too. And yes, there’s an app for that.

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