Spice Waala co-owner Uttam Mukherjee got tired of watching delivery orders disappear.
His Ballard restaurant's delivery business fell 50% over the past couple of years as fees on third-party platforms climbed, Mukherjee told My Ballard, which first reported the launch. So he built his own platform.
Yaku, which launched Oct. 29, charges a flat $9.99 delivery fee per order with no service or hidden fees. It serves only local Ballard restaurants, and national chains are excluded.
Five spots are on the platform so far: Spice Waala, Rachel's Bagels and Burritos, Pie Bird Bakeshop, Lil Woody's and Ballard Pizza Company. Mukherjee said it is free for restaurants to join.
The service covers a two-to-three-mile radius. The northern boundary is Northwest 85th Street and the eastern boundary is First Avenue Northwest, reaching parts of Greenwood, Phinney and Fremont.
Unlike gig-based platforms, Yaku's drivers are hourly employees. They are paid for all work time and reimbursed for mileage, according to the company's website. There is no tipping function yet, but Mukherjee said the team is working on one.
Mukherjee described the motivation as "frustration with the way delivery has been devastated here in Seattle because of the fees being charged to customers," according to My Ballard.
That frustration has a broader backdrop. Seattle's gig worker pay ordinance took effect in January 2024, requiring minimum pay rates for app-based delivery workers. DoorDash said in a 2026 report that Seattle consumers pay the highest delivery fees in the country. The company claimed average fees per order in the third quarter of 2025 were more than 3.5 times the average across Denver, San Francisco and Portland.
A Seattle Office of Labor Standards (OLS) report, covered by GeekWire in April, reached different conclusions. That report found weekly completed offers grew 3.2% during the ordinance's first 18 months and that worker pay rose. But it also noted that delivery companies added "Seattle regulatory fees" to customer orders in response to the law.
Yaku is transparent about its own pricing experiment. The website states the team is "testing real-world costs and demand before making a permanent pricing commitment" and plans to publish the results publicly.
Mukherjee said the platform has drawn orders and community interest since launch. He hopes to add more restaurants and expand the delivery area over time.
It has been a busy year for Mukherjee and his wife and Spice Waala co-owner Aakanksha Sinha. The pair also opened Janta, an Indian coffee and chai cafe, in Wallingford in late September.
