Restaurants are pushing back. Delivery players are listeningRestaurants are pushing back. Delivery players are listening

When the tech-fueled third-party delivery providers came onto the scene a few years back, it seemed a potential dream come true for the restaurant industry. Here were a group of well-funded companies offering teams of gig workers standing at the ready to deliver food at the click of an app to convenience-hungry consumers willing to pay the price.

For a restaurant industry eager to find new ways to generate revenue, it was a solution. And use of third-party delivery quickly became the norm.

Quickly, the seemingly perfect relationship between restaurant operators and their delivery providers began to fray. Over the past few months things have gotten more heated.

First came the grumblings about the unequal playing field. Companies like Grubhub...