The main difference between today’s delivery services and yesterday’s simple pizza delivery is accountability. Pizza shops typically employ their drivers, so if a pizza goes AWOL or fails to arrive in a timely manner, queries go straight to the restaurant.

With today’s services, restaurants and drivers are unaffiliated; add customer error and traffic, and you have a four-part equation with plenty of room for error.

My best advice: Start the ordering process before you feel hunger pangs. Hungry customers rapidly become hangry customers, considering the time spent placing and waiting for orders. Newbies who are not particularly tech-savvy can underestimate the time it takes to simply place an order.

On a day the Crave crew planned to test the three major Oahu services — Bite Squad, Postmates and Uber Eats — we wanted the food to arrive at 1 p.m., which meant the order should have been placed at 11:30 a.m., but the orderer didn’t get started until 12:15 p.m. Big mistake if your lunch hour is limited.

We were fortunate to have planned our order a day ahead, because studying the restaurant roster and their menus can take up to an hour. Using the apps and online interfaces requires filling in personal information, which also takes time at first.

Keep reading to learn what happened once we got our order in:

DORAKU

>> Order placed: 12:37 p.m.

>> Estimated delivery time: 1:38 p.m.

>> Actual delivery time: 1:58 p.m.

It was obvious Doraku takes delivery service seriously. That the food arrived in a fairly timely manner can be attributed to the restaurant’s promptness in handling the order.

We ordered panko-crusted hamachi ($15.95), pork belly yakisoba ($12.95), firecracker shrimp ($9.95) and a firecracker roll ($14.50). All came beautifully packaged and arrived in decent condition. The only casualty was the tempura-style firecracker shrimp, which became soft and flabby during the drive.

This $53.35 food order became $71.32 with taxes, fees and a $10 tip.

In this case the driver was the source of a 20-minute delivery delay, which isn’t bad by these delivery- service standards during a peak meal time. We had left instructions to meet in a loading zone outside our Waterfront Plaza office. The driver, who admitted he hadn’t read the instructions, parked elsewhere and didn’t know where he was. We had difficulty finding him because of a language barrier.

I told him to text me his location, but he was unable to do so. After wandering the building looking for him, we finally caught him at the elevator about to go up to the office.

RED PEPPER

>> Order placed: 12:31 p.m.

>> Estimated delivery time: 1:26 p.m.

>> Actual delivery time: 3:24 p.m. (replacement order)

This was a fail, although partly attributed to customer error, which offers a lesson in triple-checking your order and contact information.

We ordered bi bim bap ($10.95), kalbi ($12.95), mandoo ($6.95) and kim chee ramen ($3.99), eager to dig into this Korean fare.

When we checked the status of the online order, the Postmates website said it had been delivered. Not true.

After searching the website looking for a way to call someone, we had to resort to email, getting the response that our driver had arrived and waited at least five minutes but wasn’t able to reach us.

“Since your order was already placed and paid for, you were charged the full amount for your order and delivery.”

We were out approximately $45 and had no idea where our food went.

We’ll take our share of the blame: The phone number we gave was one digit off, but they had our address and the driver should have been able to figure it out. Or, we should have gotten an email explaining what happened and inquiring how to redirect the driver. Other services have been able to offer credit from both the restaurant and delivery side on lost or late deliveries, but not here, until we tackled the problem through corporate communications and received a refund and $40 credit.

Normally the driver will call the customer upon arriving at the drop-off location, before going to the door, so if the phone number is incorrect, the order might not be delivered, said April Conyers, Postmates’ senior director of corporate communications. Still, she said, “We always want to make things right for the customer if there is an issue.”

We placed a new order with Red Pepper at 3:07 p.m., long past the lunch rush, and it arrived quickly, at 3:24 p.m. The food was great, but by this time we were less hungry and less enthused about eating it. I do wish the noodles and broth had been separated, because when delivered together the noodles were soggy.

On the plus side, we discovered a Fort Street Mall restaurant we hadn’t known about earlier.

GROWLER USA

>> Order placed: 12:43 p.m.

>> Estimated delivery time: 1:31 p.m.

>> Actual delivery time: 1:25 p.m.

This restaurant was farthest from the office, but the food was the first to arrive, and ahead of the estimated delivery time.

The items ordered: Growler wings ($17), kalua pork nachos ($10.75) and blackened mahi tacos ($10). The nachos appeared mushy and unappetizing but proved delicious, as were the tacos. The wings were also a hit.

The restaurant performed well, but again we had a problem with the driver, who did not follow the instructions on where to park and meet us. We encountered another language barrier trying to find him, and I had to wander the property looking for him. It’s a really big property.

On top of that, he sounded agitated on the phone, and I was afraid he would leave rather than wait until we found him. We eventually found him sitting on a wall, anxiously staring at his phone.

TWO OTHER instances in which I tried the services proved disappointing.

In one case a Postmates driver arrived at Kan Zaman to find the downtown restaurant could not fill my order because its posted menu was inaccurate. I changed my order and it eventually arrived, but without the mint tea I’d ordered, because the restaurant had no cup to put it in. The driver — a sweetheart — handed me back a $5 bill for my trouble.

On New Year’s Eve, a time I’d be most likely to shelter in place and leave driving to others, I ordered stuffed mushrooms from Buca di Beppo with Bite Squad at 5:22 p.m. I was given a pickup time of 6:05 with delivery at 6:22 p.m. Tracking my order, I saw that “cooking” status changed to “checking” (the pickup time) at 6:15 p.m. But then the status returned to “cooking,” and the delivery time was pushed all the way to 7:30 p.m.

Farhad Yamoutpour, Bite Squad director of operations, said the driver cannot leave the restaurant until the food is picked up, and suggested the restaurant likely had not prepared the order in a timely way. Yet, it arrived as cold as if it had been sitting since the original 6:05 p.m. pickup time.

A Facebook query of friends showed that for the most part, people are happy with these services, but as with any transaction, caveat emptor.

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Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.