Uber’s food delivery service is expanding in the Seattle area.
The company announced today that UberEATS is now available on the Eastside, serving customers in Bellevue, Redmond, and Woodinville, among other cities east of Seattle across Lake Washington.
There will be more than 50 Eastside restaurants on the app, including Freshii, Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya, Lunchbox Laboratory, Monsoon, Racha Thai, and others. Customers order via Uber’s dedicated food delivery app, UberEATS, and food is delivered within 45 minutes, on average. Uber is removing its delivery fee in the Seattle region through the end of this summer.
Uber launched its restaurant delivery app in Seattle this past March and has served more than 25,000 people thus far, the company told GeekWire today.
Uber previously offered lunch delivery in Seattle via UberEATS starting back in October. Drivers would carry around pre-made meals and deliver them to users who ordered within the existing Uber transportation app.
The lunch service still exists today, but is called “Instant Delivery” within the UberEats app that also offers delivery from restaurants every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., rather than just the curated lunches.
GeekWire tested UberEats in March, and found the service easy to use, though a bit expensive when including the delivery fee.
UberEats, available in 22 cities worldwide, is Uber’s attempt to utilize the back-end logistics framework built for its ride-hailing service and take advantage of the vast network of drivers the company already has on the roads.
Uber, now valued at $68 billion, faces a flurry of competition with startups and corporations alike utilizing technology to help get food, grocery items, and other products in the hands of consumers in the most efficient way possible.
In Seattle, food delivery companies include service like DoorDash, Peach, Lish, Munchery, Square-owned Caviar, Postmates, Bitesquad, Seamless, Gobble, GrubHub, Farmigo, Yelp-owned Eat 24, and many others.
Even big tech giants like Amazon — which also delivers groceries via AmazonFresh, a competitor to Instacart — are getting involved, with the Seattle company rolling out a new restaurant delivery service that GeekWire tested last year.
Amazon also last month launched a workplace lunch delivery service called Daily Dish, taking direct aim at Seattle startup Peach.
The competition is heated, and some aren’t finding success. Venture-backed food delivery companies that raised millions of dollars like SpoonRocket and Ola are no longer operating, while others are struggling to raise more investment. Meanwhile, Quartz published a story this week detailing how Postmates — now valued at $450 million — is struggling to bring down prices and “is quietly misleading customers about it.”
