My Romanian restaurant disappeared from the app
Restaurant operators use disappeared and closed interchangeably and they are different problems with different fixes. A closed listing is present and not orderable. A disappeared listing is not shown at all, which happens for three quite separate reasons: the delivery zone no longer reaches the address being searched from, the listing has been removed or restricted by the platform, or it has fallen far enough in ranking that a browsing customer never reaches it. The first is the most common and the least investigated.
How do I tell them apart?
Two searches, from two addresses, one near the site and one at the edge of the usual catchment.
Present near and absent far means the zone has narrowed, and the restaurant is trading normally for everybody inside it. Absent from both means it is not the zone. Present when you search the brand by name but absent when browsing means it is ranking.
Those three outcomes lead to three completely different conversations, and starting the wrong one costs days.
Why would the zone narrow without me doing anything?
Because coverage is partly a platform decision and it responds to courier supply.
When couriers are scarce, platforms shrink delivery areas to protect delivery times. That is a deliberate operational response and not a fault, it is usually temporary, and it is never announced to the restaurant. From inside, it produces fewer orders from further out and nothing else.
Weather, holidays and local events all trigger it, which is why a soft evening in bad weather sometimes really is the weather, mediated by a mechanism nobody sees.
What if the platform restricted the listing?
Then you are owed an explanation, and it should already have arrived.
Regulation 2019/1150 requires a statement of reasons for a restriction or suspension “prior to or at the time” it takes effect, on a durable medium, and the phrase in Article 3(1)(c) covering “any other kind of restriction upon, in whole or in part” is broad enough to include a listing being demoted or excluded rather than only removed.
Ask for it by name, with the date the effect began, and send it to support and to the account manager together.
How do I know when the effect began?
From your own record, which is the part that has to exist in advance.
A narrowing zone leaves no trace anywhere you can access. A restriction produces no notification. What both produce is a change in what a customer at a given address can see, and that is observable only from outside.
A zone that narrowed on Tuesday is only arguable if nobody was looking on Tuesday. Kitchain (kitchain.co) tests the same set of addresses every day, so the narrowing arrives with a date on it and stops being a matter of opinion.
Does the platform mix in Romania change anything?
It changes the maintenance load, not the diagnosis.
A brand carrying several listings has several places for this to happen independently, and the failure is per listing rather than per restaurant. So the estate-wide question is not whether the restaurant is visible but which of its listings is, and that has to be tracked separately.
What should I do while a zone is narrowed?
Very little, and specifically not close the store.
The customers inside the reduced area can still order and are the ones most likely to. Closing removes them too. If the reduction is severe and persistent, that is worth raising as a commercial matter with dates attached, and it is not worth reacting to on the night.