What it's like supporting a family as an Uber Eats driver on Long Island

At about 9:30 one bitterly cold November morning, Brad Herrschaft—in the car, as usual—received a text from his wife, Ria, who couldn’t find one of their two- year-old son Jhett’s dinosaur slippers. "It’s ... in ... the ... dryer," he read aloud, texting her back from a Wendy’s parking lot. "Next, she’ll be asking me, ‘How’d he get it wet?’ "

Sure enough.

"He ... jumped in ... the tub ... with ... his slippers on."

Herrschaft quickly slipped his phone back into the cup holder, reopened the Uber Eats app and got back to work. Somewhere, Long Islanders were dreaming longingly of the lives they left behind, all those evenings spent nodding off on the LIRR as the train made its way—at least in Herrschaft’s case—back to Lake Ronkonkoma from Manhattan, where the 50-year-old worked in private security at the United Arab Emirates Consulate.

Like lots of Islanders, he might still be consumed by his sudden furloughing in March, or Ria’s sudden dismissal from her court reporting job the same month. Like other tall, athletic fathers, Herrschaft could regret not having played soccer more with his equally athletic six-year-old son Jase when he’d had the chance, before the coronavirus canceled everything and father and son were forced to redirect from sports to spelling homework.

But Herrschaft seems capable of going in just one direction—forward—a very good trait to possess during a pandemic, as it turns out. And anyway, there was no time for nostalgia. Some guy named Zack in Centereach was waiting for a Breakfast Baconator and Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant, and it was Herrschaft’s mission to deliver the goods.

"I get home at 5, and if Jase has some homework to finish up, I’ll help him with that," he said. Herrschaft has been working for Uber Eats since September.

Make a left turn on Firdale Street, interrupted the GPS lady, also with no time for nostalgia.

"The little guy usually needs to eat something, so I’ll feed him, then both of them have to get into the bath."

Make a right turn on Holbrook Road.

"And now that Jhett is potty training, I have to keep on checking him and putting him on the toilet," Herrschaft sighed. "Usually by 6:30 or 7, they’re done with everything, so I let them play a little bit with their cars."

In a half mile, take a left turn onto Middle Country Road.

His new world is baffling, destination-less, yet Herrschaft keeps moving. By 9:45 the kids will usually be asleep, and he’ll hit the sack too, something he hates doing before Ria gets home—she just got a job working evenings in a UPS warehouse—but it can’t be helped. He has to be up and out the door by 7 the next morning, when the action heats up and the orders come rolling in from Portion Road, a stretch that includes McDonald’s, the IHOP, the Island Lake Diner. If Herrschaft is to make his goal of $160 or $180 before it’s time to head home at 4:30, Portion will have to do its part. And he will need to hustle.

To the public, Uber is still primarily a ride-sharing service, but it’s food delivery that has accounted for the largest share of the company’s overall revenue, at least since last summer. It’s a fiercely competitive business, what with Grubhub, DoorDash and all the other apps out there, but consumers have also embraced restaurant delivery in unprecedented numbers during the pandemic. Accordingly, Uber Eats has gone on a hiring binge, and Long Islanders have answered the call. According to the company, more than 10,000 of us have signed up to be delivery drivers just since April, many motivated, like Herrschaft, by the promise of quick money and a flexible, work-when-you-want schedule. There are other perks, too.

"I enjoy seeing neighborhoods and streets that in general I would never have any need to go to," said the Holbrook native, cruising down Main Street to the Starbucks in Sayville. Once upon a time, Herrschaft did indeed need to go to Sayville. He and his father used to take Candee Avenue to the shoreline so the pair could sail the family boat to Fire Island. But that was a million years ago, when young Brad still wanted to be an astronaut, before he wanted to be a phys-ed teacher, and then an NYPD officer, which is what he became. Herrschaft was deployed to Precinct 81 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and retired in 2011 after 20 years on the force, partly to collect his pension. He was going through a divorce at the time and needed to pay off a mortgage so he could support his two daughters, Savannah and Tiana, now 22 and 20. His own father is gone now, his 74-year-old mother moved in with him over the summer.

"She got diagnosed with the beginning stages of dementia, and so I was like, ‘Mom, why don’t you just move in before this progresses and gets worse, and you don’t know where you are?’ " It was yet another unexpected turn of events in a season full of them, a predicament that has made Herrschaft and many others peculiarly vulnerable to the allure of gig work even as that work brings vulnerabilities of its own—no health benefits, say.

"She just had physical therapy yesterday, so I took an hour and took her to physical therapy. If the wife has a doctor’s appointment and I need to watch the baby, I watch the baby. Those are all benefits of working for Uber."

Make a right turn, then a left turn.

One of the other benefits, admittedly minor, of an Uber Eats job is the glimpse it provides of Long Islanders’ eating habits. At 10:30 a.m., for instance, Herrschaft found himself delivering French toast and two milkshakes to a silhouetted figure behind a curtain in Nesconset. That or a disembodied hand reaching around the door is what passes for human interaction in a job like this. About 90 percent of his customers opt for contactless delivery, Herrschaft said. "For the most part, they don’t want to see you, they don’t want to deal with you."

But that’s OK, things move faster that way, a plus when you’re committed to making 20 to 30 dollars an hour, five or six days a week. "When it’s busy, it’s one right after the other. And even if it’s not, you’re only waiting about 10 minutes for an order." Herrschaft likes accepting jobs in Uber’s hot zones, which pay more and are identified by various shades of orange on the app’s map, like storms on Doppler radar. After setting an order on someone’s stoop or welcome mat, he takes a photo to prove he did so, texts "enjoy your food" to the customer, then trots back to his car for the next delivery. Only twice has a bag gone unclaimed. After he and Uber tried and failed to locate the source of a recent Outback Steakhouse order, the company told him to discard the food. "Which means eat the food," he laughed. "I called my wife and said, ‘Ria, I’m bringing home steaks!’ "

Making a thousand dollars a week for picking up food and dropping off food, and having the flexibility—that gives you a whole new perspective.

Brad Herrschaft

Usually, though, she fixes dinner for the family before going to work. The Herrschafts rarely order takeout and haven’t eaten indoors at a restaurant since the pandemic began.

Proceed straight on Clinton Avenue.

"Some people are so set in their ways, when something disrupts that, it’s a major issue," said Herrschaft, who began this day like most, rubbing down the interior of his 2011 liquid silver metallic Mazda 2 with disinfectant wipes, per Uber regulations. The disruptions started almost immediately. When he turned the ignition of his car, which has 125,000 miles on it, he noticed a headlight out ("good thing I drive during the day") and a low-tire-pressure exclamation point glowing from the dashboard ("maybe it’s the cold"). Already this morning Herrschaft had been forced to borrow his wife’s debit card to pay for the $15 in gas he typically uses in a day. His own had just been canceled after being targeted by fraudsters. "You have to figure out how to be flexible."

Make a slight right turn on Entrance Road.

Herrschaft wheeled into the sprawling campus at Stony Brook University with someone’s iced peppermint mocha in tow. "I never thought I’d be doing this," he admitted, adding that initially he was worried what his friends and family might think. "I would be lying if I didn’t say it crossed my mind. I’m really going to be delivering food? This is what I’m stooping to? But I don’t care. You have to do what’s best for yourself and for your family. And making a thousand dollars a week for picking up food and dropping off food, and having the flexibility—that gives you a whole new perspective. And you’re providing a service to the community."

On the AM radio station he listens to while driving, a morning show host reminded his audience to dress properly for the freezing weather outside. Later, he told listeners that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was "a certified lunatic."

"I don’t really know how we got here as a country," Herrschaft said, although the media, which "demonizes people for their beliefs," came in for a large share of the blame. "There are some people now who won’t date somebody because of their political affliation. To me, all of that stuff is crazy, it’s just bizarre."

"How did we get here?" he said again a few minutes later, although this time he was trying to find his way out of Stony Brook. "Now I’m getting lost, too much talking," he laughed, grabbing his phone and checking the map.

The day goes fast. A Sausage McMuffn for Barbara, Amber’s bagel sandwich, Madison’s doughnuts, Andy’s Santa Fe quesadillas and, boom, it’s 2 p.m. After yet another Sayville delivery, Herrschaft decided he had time for a detour down Candee Avenue, the same road he and his dad took all those years ago. The Victorian houses were the same too, and the road still ended at the beach. Stopping his car on the sand, he craned his neck out the window for a view of Great South Bay. That too was the same, but also different. November’s spray was chilly, the water a roiled gray. Fire Island sat on the horizon, as always, but today it seemed even farther away than usual, almost as distant as summer.

But Herrschaft, predictably, saw something else. "I love it here, it’s beautiful," he said simply, making a U-turn and heading back to work.

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.