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Coronavirus Latest: Reading Terminal Market Seeing Thousands Of Online Delivery Orders Daily During Pandemic

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Popular Philadelphia food purveyors, like the Reading Terminal Market, have seen a huge increase in delivery requests. The deliveries are making up for the lack of foot traffic and they have even allowed for the hiring of furloughed workers.

Foot traffic at the Reading Terminal Market has decreased, but online orders have skyrocketed.

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"We did about 50 order fulfillments every day," said Elizabeth Halen of Flying Monkey Bakery.

"We did over 6,000 orders," Reading Terminal general manager Anuj Gupta said.

That's in one day.

DoorDash, Grubhub and other food delivery services have been extremely busy.

"It's been real busy but I've been coming back and forth from South Philly, back up here, back and forth," said Deidra Herbert with DoorDash.

Now that online orders have multiplied exponentially, the fulfillment center has moved from a small room to center court, using donated materials from around the market to set up shop.

"The racks from the produce stores, plastic tables we use for festivals on Filbert Street, and also some of our high-top tables," said Halen.

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Upwards of 6,000 deliveries per day is quite an undertaking, but there is a silver lining.

"A number of men/women that have been furloughed or lost their jobs at other market stores, we've been able to temporarily hire them and put them to work," said Gupta.

At the historic Italian Market, there won't be any Easter celebrations, but businesses at the country's oldest outdoor market are also banding together to offer online delivery.

Just like Reading Terminal, businesses at the Italian Market say they will continue to show up for their customers.

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