Ordering food has quietly become one of the most frequent things people do on their phones. Checking a menu before a reservation, comparing delivery times between two apps, reordering the usual from a place you already trust. Almost none of it happens at home on a secured connection. It happens between meetings, at a coworking space, at the restaurant itself while waiting for a table.
Most of these apps also have a card saved. That convenience is the whole point, but it means every order is a small financial transaction happening wherever you happen to be standing at the time.
Public Wi-Fi Isn’t as Bad as It Used to Be, But It’s Nothing
It’s worth being accurate here rather than alarmist. The FTC’s current guidance on public Wi-Fi points out that because most websites and apps now use encryption by default, connecting to a public network is generally safer than it was a decade ago. That’s a fair and useful update to the old blanket warnings.
But general safety isn’t the same as guaranteed safety for every app. Not every food ordering platform, loyalty program, or third-party delivery integration handles encryption equally well, and the network itself can still see which services you’re connecting to and when, even if it can’t read the contents. Fake hotspots designed to look like a restaurant’s real Wi-Fi are also a known and ongoing tactic, one that a correctly configured app can’t protect you from on its own.
Where This Gets More Specific: Mobile Payments
This is where the FCC’s guidance on mobile wallet and payment services is direct: it specifically advises against using mobile payment services over an unsecured Wi-Fi network. A food order with a saved card is exactly that kind of transaction, and it’s one most people complete without thinking twice about which network they’re on.
Adding a Layer That Doesn’t Depend on the App
A vpn download solves the part of this that’s outside any single app’s control. It encrypts your device’s entire connection, so regardless of how well a given ordering app or loyalty platform handles its own security, the traffic between your phone and the internet is protected. It’s a five-minute setup that covers every app you use afterward, not just the ones that happen to get their own encryption right.
This matters more, not less, as food ordering spreads across more apps and more third-party integrations. Every additional platform is one more piece of software that has to get security right on its own. A VPN doesn’t depend on any of them getting it right.
A Few Habits Worth Adding
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency makes a similar point in its own public Wi-Fi guidance: treat convenience and security as separate questions, and don’t assume one guarantees the other.
The Bottom Line
Ordering food is about as routine as internet activity gets, which is exactly why it’s easy to do without thinking about the network underneath it. The apps have gotten better at security, and public Wi-Fi has gotten less dangerous overall. Encrypting the connection yourself is still the one step that doesn’t depend on every app getting everything right, every time.