It's Saturday night in Montreal and food-delivery drivers rule the roads

As curfew descends on Montreal at 8 p.m., an army of food-delivery drivers navigate the deserted streets, shuttling take-out orders between restaurants and homes.

In many ways, these drivers are delivering Saturday night straight to people's homes.

One of the people behind the wheel is Marie Beaulieu, who has been driving for UberEats since December 2019.

Beaulieu estimates she makes about $20 an hour but says money is only part of the reason she does the job.

Delivering food also means she is one of the rare souls who still gets to move around the ghostly city, with its deserted streets and highways.

"There are still some people on the road but it's more quiet," she said. "We can park easily … and it's beautiful."

Competitive business

Working for UberEats requires patience and, perhaps more importantly, strategy.

Uber pays bonuses for making deliveries in high-demand neighbourhoods. However, those bonuses attract many drivers and that means more competition for every order.

"There's too much people coming and you don't receive calls," said Beaulieu.

So Beaulieu focuses on areas where the bonus is slightly smaller but there are fewer drivers competing for it.

The key, it seems, is being flexible and nimble.

On one recent night, she spent about 30 minutes parked on St-Denis Street near de Maisonneuve Boulevard without getting a single notification for a delivery on her app.

Seeing this strategy wasn't working, she cruised through downtown streets hoping to be in the right place at the right time.

The strategy paid off. After about 10 minutes, she got a call. Somebody in the Plateau-Mont-Royal had ordered a dish from Fisshu, a Sushi restaurant on Ste-Catherine Street.

Beaulieu parked outside the restaurant, put on her flashing hazard lights and raced inside.

The interior of Fisshu had been emptied of most everything that would have made it recognizable as a restaurant.

Gone were the tables, chairs, menus, place settings and diners.

Instead the restaurant's dining room was an eerily empty space. In the back, staff sat around a table. At the entrance: a table with hand sanitizer, a menu and Beaulieu's order.

"There was always a full dining room with people there and sometimes we had to wait for the order. But now there's nobody in the restaurant. It's empty," said Beaulieu.

More loved by customers than restaurateurs

The switch to delivery-only has meant that many restaurants are dependent on the apps for their business. Many are not happy with this arrangement.

A group of Quebec restaurants launched a class-action suit against food delivery apps over their steep commissions.

This week the Quebec government tabled a bill to cap delivery fees at 15 percent of the amount of the order before taxes.. 20 percent if an app is used. The government says the companies currently charge up to 30 per cent.

Outside the restaurant, Beaulieu packed the sushi order into her refrigerator bag and raced off to a home across the street from La Fontaine Park to deliver the food.

Another order came in — for food from Snacktown, a Côte-St-Paul shop that caters to people with the munchies.

"Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream …. another Ben and Jerry's and an Orange Crush," Beaulieu read out the order on her phone screen.

She picked up the order at the Verdun Snacktown location and delivered to a home in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

After the ice cream delivery, Beaulieu wrapped up her night.

In all, she did four deliveries. Including tips, it worked out to about $20 an hour. Her gas and car maintenance are not covered.

But money isn't everything. Working in delivery means offers a chance to get outside during a pandemic that has sent everyone into their homes

"I started doing Uber delivery because I wanted to go out and move," said Beaulieu.