Uber delivers a lot of users in Washington D.C. to restaurants, now it will start delivering over a hundred of those restaurants to its users in a major expansion of its UberEATS service. Instead of just a few dishes from a handful of restaurants during lunchtime, UberEATS will now offer full menus, with service from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays via the new stand-alone UberEATS app.
"We're partnering with some amazing restaurants," Brian Gelb, the general manager for UberEATS in D.C. told me in an interview. "We've got a really wide variety of food. Some of the restaurants are just delivering exclusively through us."
The UberEATS app at its core is similar to restaurant delivery service apps like PostMates and Eat24 but with that Uber-style interface you can see up top. Each delivery has a flat $4.99 fee no matter how much you order, but that won't kick in for at least a few weeks, delivery will be free until then. The original UberEATS service will still be available too, either in the new app or from the original Uber app the way it is now. The delivery fee for that will still be $2.99.
After you order your meal, you get an estimated arrival time and an Uber driver is automatically dispatched to pick it up and deliver it to you as efficiently as possible. Some UberX and UberPool drivers will also be deliver UberEATS, but not at the same time.
"Moving food and moving people are very different," Gelb said. "You won't be pooling with a sandwich. We're training our drivers with a video and quiz or they can get training in person.
"You won't be pooling with a sandwich."
Gelb came on last July as GM of UberEverything, so-called because his remit includes everything Uber does that is not moving people around. The plan for the UberEATS expansion came not long after that, with tests beginning in Toronto and D.C. in the second round of cities getting the new service. The API that Uber is putting into iPads it gives to restaurants is already showing signs of boosting their business. Gelb described how some dishes and some restaurants had to be marked as unavailable simply because they would run out of food. Uber isn't making any promises about an increase in business, but they do plan to share some of the data they collect about a partner restaurant with the owners so they can better prepare for the dishes and times when they will most be in demand.
Standing out in a space as crowded won't be a cakewalk. Uber's name recognition will likely be an aid, but the company will have to rely on more than that to attract customers who may have grown used to ordering food from other apps if they order from apps at all. Some of the answers are universal, but other aspects of making UberEATS appealing to D.C. are specific for the area.
"Having a variety of restaurants is important in D.C.," Gelb said. "D.C. is also really health conscious so it's important to have healthy restaurants as partners."
Delivery is confined to the District right now as Uber feels out the rules and regulations for operating in Maryland and Virginia. Accounting for the restaurants may be why Uber is willing to be notably more cautious than it was in starting up its original service where it was sometimes a target of legal attacks.
"We need to figure out how to cross state lines," Gelb said. "We want to deliver to and from restaurants whether it's in the District or right outside it."
