Sales seem to have taken off with the cute Starship Technologies delivery robots in Bowling Green, but some local restaurants have quit using them.

Zach Baroudi, the owner of Kabob It, a Mediterranean restaurant on East Wooster Street, posted on social media Wednesday about his problem getting payments from Starship.

“We’ve gotten it resolved since the post. It is resolved now,” Baroudi said. “There was an issue with payment.”

Starship Enterprises did not respond to questions for this article.

Baroudi said that after a “double digit” number of phone calls, payment was made by Starship.

He said a similar incident of months without payment had also happened to him in the fall.

“That’s why I’m frustrated. I was frustrated. I’m still frustrated, but I’m not going to do business with them any more,” Baroudi said. “I took all their stuff down and told them to come pick up their iPads.”

He said that his Starship contact called the problems “minor hiccups in a new company.” However, Baroudi said, “they are not brand new anymore.”

The first white six-wheeled Starship delivery robots appeared on the Bowling Green State University campus in February 2020. There are currently more than 60 of the robots, which have their local base on campus.

Initially, the robots had limited delivery on, or close to, campus, but have since expanded across to off-campus locations across town.

Steven Sterling of Sterling’s Amish Deli, also on East Wooster, said he is having problems getting payment from Starship.

Sterling said he began working with the service in January, and has only received one, two-week period payment.

Both businesses made comparisons with DoorDash and GrubHub, which also deliver for them.

“As a small business owner, I don’t like those platforms. I would rather (customers) order through me, because (the delivery services) take such a big cut,” Baroudi said. “But I respect the platforms, because it does bring in customers, and they hold their end of the deal and reimburse you when you get paid.”

He said that he was receiving multiple orders, daily, from Starship.

“Their whole platform is very behind the times. It’s not user friendly,” Sterling said. “They have a lot of kinks to work out. It’s a gimmicky concept.”

He listed off problems, including not being able to make menu changes and changing business hours. Those changes had to be called in.

After telling Starship that he wouldn’t work with them until they made their payments, the orders kept coming in, Sterling said. Then the company remotely accessed their iPad, sending him emails about order processing speed and unfulfilled orders.

That was when Sterling said he found out that the tablet provided by Starship couldn’t be turned off. He wrapped it in a blanket and stowed it away, until the battery died.

“I decided there would be no more orders until I got paid, but the orders kept coming in,” Sterling said. “I threw it in the closet, so I didn’t have to hear it.”

His first payment came in on May 3. Sterling said that it had taken four months for the first payment to arrive.

Sterling said the other companies send payment almost immediately.

“I’ve given away thousands of dollars of food, and I don’t have the money for it. It’s very damaging,” Sterling said. “It’s a big deal.”

When the robots were first offered as a delivery option he wasn’t interested, because he said it took jobs away from drivers.

“I wasn’t interested at all. I said I wasn’t doing that, but pretty soon everyone else started jumping in on the bandwagon and joined,” Sterling said about being on the app. “The freshmen students were not seeing my restaurant, they have no idea who I am, so I said now I have no choice. Then I joined.”

He hasn’t decided whether to sever ties with Starship.

“It’s tough. We’ll see how it goes,” Sterling said.

On the positive side, Sterling said that the Starship service did result in additional orders and that they have a lower cost than the other services he uses. The Starship upcharge is 20%, while he said the other services charge 30%.

“The way prices are going right now, you can’t’ afford to lose anything,” Sterling said about the impact of inflation and the economic swings he’s endured through the pandemic.

As of Friday, the Starship App showed Sterling’s Amish Deli as temporarily closed.

Sterling’s Amish Deli can be found online at https://sterlingsamishdeli.square.site/ and Kabob It is online at https://www.eatkabobit.com/.