The Bears didn’t get to the Super Bowl this year, but one Chicago company will be making its first appearance.
Grubhub, the pioneering Chicago-based food delivery service, announced Monday it is running a TV commercial during the Super Bowl LX broadcast Feb. 8 from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
The Big Game is a big bet for Grubhub, a former tech unicorn that has sold twice in the last five years at a significant decline in valuation as it continues to lag market leaders DoorDash and Uber Eats. Commercials for the matchup between New England and Seattle on NBC are reportedly selling for a record $8 million per spot.
“Our Super Bowl debut isn’t just an ad—it’s a reset for the Grubhub brand,“ Marnie Kain, vice president of brand for Grubhub, said in a statement.
Grubhub released a 15-second teaser of its spot, which also represents the Super Bowl debut for absurdist Greek film director Yorgos Lanthimosa, who is nominated for an Academy Award again this year for his latest offering, “Bugonia.”
While little is revealed in the teaser, the ad pans along a dining table filled with trays of food as an announcer delivers the mangled idiom “this February, one food delivery app will finally put their mouth where their money is.” A steaming serving dish is delivered to the end of the table and its top is removed as four guests look on with some degree of consternation.
The full Super Bowl ad will ostensibly resolve the mystery as to what is being served.
“We’ve partnered with acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos to address the category’s biggest pain point through a bold, cinematic lens,” Kain said. “This teaser is the first step in a broader ambition to fundamentally change what people expect from delivery.”
Last year, a record 127.7 million viewers tuned in for Super Bowl LIX on Fox, according to Nielsen, as the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. Making an advertising splash at the Super Bowl can be a gamechanger for companies looking for national exposure or a marketing reboot.
Grubhub could use both.
Founded in 2004 by Chicago software engineers Mike Evans and Matt Maloney as a way to move restaurant menus from the cluttered kitchen drawer to an organized website, Grubhub started with a single merchant — a now-closed Uptown Chinese restaurant — building what would become a national e-commerce platform and launching a new industry that changed the way consumers ordered food delivery
In 2014, Grubhub filed for an initial public offering, raising $193 million and valuing the company at north of $2 billion.
Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com acquired Grubhub for $7.3 billion in 2021. But after a spike during the pandemic, Grubhub saw its revenues decline, losing ground to market leaders DoorDash and Uber Eats. Grubhub downsized its workforce and put itself up for sale.
In January 2025, New York-based Wonder Group Inc. bought Grubhub from Just Eat for about $650 million, acquiring the restaurant delivery service at a steep discount to its previous valuation.
One year later, Grubhub is in the Super Bowl under new ownership.
Grubhub won’t be the only food delivery service running a spot in the Super Bowl broadcast. Uber Eats is advertising in the Big Game for the sixth consecutive year.
Meanwhile, another Chicago-area advertiser, WeatherTech, a once-obscure Bolingbrook car floor mat manufacturer, will be back in the Super Bowl this year for its 14th commercial in 12 years.
In 2014, WeatherTech founder David MacNeil had the audacity to blow a large chunk of his marketing budget on his first Super Bowl spot, paying $4 million for the airtime to compete on TV’s biggest advertising stage.
The entry fee has doubled since then, but after 22 years, Grubhub is finally ready to “put their mouth where their money is” as well.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
