Washington, D.C. — Members of the Protect Our Restaurants campaign from across the country, including Andrew Martino, owner of Ghost Truck Kitchen, John Schall, owner of El Jefe’s Taquerias, Kristen Corral, co-owner of Tacotarian, Kyle Inserra, owner of La La Taqueria and Rosa Thurnher, owner of El Ponce, issued the following statement in response to news that the Department of Justice has cleared Uber’s acquisition of Postmates, a deal that would further consolidates the food delivery market.

“This decision by the Department of Justice will only tighten the incredible squeeze restaurant owners like us are already experiencing every day. In the midst of a pandemic, while we continued to serve food to our community and provide jobs for our talented staff, delivery apps like UberEats and Postmates took advantage of the crisis, charged us outrageous fees, stole our menus, and refused to comply with laws meant to protect us. Allowing Uber to acquire Postmates is a failure by the DOJ to protect the needs of small business owners and the communities we support. Small businesses across the country will need President-elect Biden to take a new approach to deals like this.”

For more information, read “Rescuing Restaurants: How to Protect Restaurants, Workers, and Communities from Predatory Delivery App Corporations,” and visit ProtectOurRestaurants.com.

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Economic Liberties works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. AELP believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.